


Another One?!

by oliviaandersonisntmyrealnamelol



Series: Another One?! [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, No Smut, Timeline What Timeline, all i want is for these dumb kids to have like kinda decent parents, and about the plot, but like better than batman so that gotta count for something, im kinda picking and choosing stuff that i want and moving things around to better fit the plot, it's very domestic, its like 1/3 angst so you know, no betas we die like robins, not amazing ones obviously like what do you take me for a fluff writer, steph babs and duke are also there but mostly in the background, the main main characters are marinette adrien dick and jason, there's kinda a proper plot there to keep chapters contained, tim cass and damian are also adopted but less important in the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 60,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28173084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliviaandersonisntmyrealnamelol/pseuds/oliviaandersonisntmyrealnamelol
Summary: Adrienette moves to Gotham because of Circumstances and try to fix the system. On the way, they adopt like fifty kids.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: Another One?! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2113329
Comments: 25
Kudos: 218





	1. Prologue

She pulled Hawkmoth’s pin from his costume and breathed a sigh of relief when he detransformed.

“Huh, so it was Gabriel the whole time? That almost makes too much sense,” she murmured.

“What’s that supposed to mean--?!”

She punched him in the face and couldn’t help but smile as his nose cracked beneath her fist. Except, maybe, she’d been a little harsh on him because he was now knocked out cold.

Oh well. He’d been the source of about half of her stress for the past three and a half years. He deserved more.

Marinette allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief and close her eyes.

Had she not been afraid he would grab the pin from her when he inevitably woke up before she did, she would have passed out then and there. They’d been fighting for days straight and she was exhausted.

But there was still a bit more to do. She pushed herself to her feet and looked around.

They were on the bridge where Andre’s ice cream cart usually was, though it was hard to tell. The area around her was still aflame from when an akumatized Ryuko had decided that it was time for Paris to burn to the ground. She wiped her sweaty forehead and looked down at Gabriel. She needed to get him to safety... but was there still a place the fire hadn’t touched?

She didn’t know. She needed to find out.

She tied him up with her yoyo and picked him up, carrying him under her arm as she ran through the streets of Paris.

Hopefully, she’d spot her partner on the way.

A few minutes later she spotted Adrien sitting on a rooftop. She wanted to yell at him to get down, because all the flames were making the buildings structurally unsound, but then she saw his face.

Something was wrong.

He looked at her and, if possible, his shoulders managed to slump even more.

She bit her lip and glanced at Gabriel. She decided that she could leave him alone for a few minutes. He was tied up, there was no way he’d be able to get away before they noticed.

Besides, she had his miraculous. What was he gonna do? Be a bad parent at her?

She dropped him in a relatively safe place and then climbed up the building.

“Hey, what’s up?” She asked, taking a seat beside him.

He motioned behind himself and she cringed a little bit when she found Nathalie. The woman was barely conscious. Her face was puffy and bruises were starting to form.

“So, it was Gabriel and Nathalie all along,” she mumbled.

“Yep,” he whispered, his grip tightening on his baton. “I have no family left. They’re all dead or sucky.”

“You have me.”

“That’s different.”

Marinette didn’t say anything. He wasn’t wrong. Instead, she gently pulled him down until he was resting his head in her lap. Her fingers combed through his hair.

And then she paused. She mulled over the first thing he’d said...

“Wait, your mom is dead?” She blurted. Then she pulled her hands from his hair and covered her face. “Sorry, that was stupid. I meant to say that I just thought she was missing, I was just surprised, that was a terrible way to phrase that, oh my kwami --.”

Adrien was laughing, though.

She couldn’t help but smile despite her embarrassment.

And then she was giggling, too.

Sure, it was generally not what you would laugh over, but their brains were so fried from lack of sleep and the amount of revelations they’d had in the past few days that everything was absolutely hilarious. The building could have collapsed underneath them and they would have found it in themselves to laugh.

But, eventually, they sobered. Mainly because the adrenaline had finally started to die down and laughing is extremely painful when you have broken ribs or a ruptured diaphragm.

Adrien sighed lightly, then winced.

“But… yeah. Apparently that was what Hawkmoth’s wish was going to be. He wanted to raise my mom from the dead.”

Marinette looked down at him and wasn’t surprised to see tears spilling over the front of his mask. She didn’t say anything about it, though, opting to just run her fingers through his hair again.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know,” Marinette mumbled. “I’m still sorry you have to go through this.”

He slowly pushed himself up. “We should fix everything.”

He offered her a hand to get to her feet and she cringed lightly as she forced herself to put weight on her definitely sprained ankle.

“Right. I think I left my Lucky Charm…” She paused, racking her brain, then nodded to herself. “It should be back by the school.”

They looked at Nathalie and Gabriel. Both of them were passed out due to their injuries (and probably the smoke, the heroes were lucky they’d thought to get filtration systems in their masks but everyone else...).

“Should we… leave them?” He said slowly.

They were pretty far away from the school and they were injured. The idea of lugging the two the whole way there was…

She hopped down -- FUCK, there was that sprained ankle again -- and slowly untied Gabriel. Adrien must have figured out what she was planning, because he brought Nathalie down with him. She tied them to a mostly safe lamppost.

With that mostly dealt with, her boyfriend hooked his arm around her and they started the slow walk back to the school.

They kept their gazes up. They told themselves that they didn’t see all the bodies in the streets. Didn’t see the way they clutched their throats with pained expressions etched on their faces for the rest of time. Didn’t see the way their clothes were singed or completely burned off in places. Didn’t see the way their skin was littered with burns or scuffed where they had fallen while trying to escape.

It was harder to ignore the deafening silence that surrounded them. The only thing to be heard was the crackling of fires and the occasional sound of a building collapsing. The first few days had been filled with screaming but now...

She heard a squeak under her foot and stopped, glancing down.

It was a stuffed bear. Its arm was still smoldering.

Adrien gave her a gentle tug. She wiped her eyes and continued walking.

But when they got there…

“Please tell me that your Lucky Charm wasn’t flammable.”

Marinette pursed her lips tightly as she watched the flames stretch ever-higher. Of course the school had gone down quickly, it was filled with papers. Still, it surprised her to find it like that.

And then she processed his words. And her face drained of color behind her mask. Because she remembered what her lucky charm was. It had been a bag of flour. Pretty much the most flammable thing to exist.

Which meant that she couldn’t cast the miraculous cure.

Which meant that everything they’d just seen was going to have to stay that way. All those people were...

She leaned into Adrien heavily and buried her face in his shoulder. She felt him stiffen beside her and then he slowly turned into her and wrapped her in a hug. Neither of them said anything as he nuzzled his face in her hair. Neither of them acknowledged the fact that tears were dripping onto her head or that the front of his suit was getting wet.

“What do we do?”

Because there had to be something. There was no way they could just let these people die. There had to be some sort of loophole, had to be some sort of way to fix it.

Clawed hands dug into her. “I don’t know…”

Marinette finally hugged him back.

“I have an idea. I hate it but it's…”

“What is it?”

“We use the wish.”

He pulled away quickly. “What? Mari, no, we can’t.”

“So, what, we just let them all die?!”

“We…” He paused. “We can’t just bring them back to life. You know how it is, the world will balance out. A bunch of other people will die instead.”

She threw her hands up in frustration and then instantly regretted it as pain flared in her chest. She hugged herself and sent him a glare.

“I know that! But it’s not like we can just let the entirety of Paris die!”

He shook his head slightly. “It’s the same amount of people dead. It doesn’t matter if it’s people you care about versus people you don’t know, we can’t just --.”

“Shut up! You’re only able to say that because everyone you care about is evil or dead!”

Adrien flinched. Hard.

She looked away. Shit. Why had she said that? He was being fair, what she’d said was totally uncalled for. She bit her lip.

“I’m sorry. That was rude of me. This isn’t your fault and I’m lashing out at you and that’s not fair. I just… I can’t let them die, Adrien. They were all counting on us, and I let them down… I shouldn’t have brought your family into it...”

He nodded slightly. She wished she could see his face behind his mask… or maybe she didn’t. Because she could see his eyes, and they were so hurt…

And then she came to a realization.

“Wait, wait, Adrien, your mom.”

“Yes, I get it. My mom is dead,” he said bitterly.

She winced, then shook her head. “Not that. Well, yes, that, actually. What if we make it so she never died? If she never died then Hawkmoth wouldn’t have existed and no one would have died. We need to try it.”

“And if a lot of random people drop dead because of us?”

“They already have!” She realized she was yelling and dropped her voice back down to a calmer tone as she continued: “Either we get lucky and only one person has to die to bring everyone back or another two million drop dead somewhere else.”

He gripped his baton tightly and then shook his head slowly.

“Mari…”

“Please. It’s our best bet.”

He reluctantly pulled the ring from his finger. She took off her earrings.

The kwamis looked at each other in alarm.

But the humans weren’t seeing any other options.

She felt the ring drop into her hand and winced. She and Adrien met eyes and she slowly leaned up, pressing a short kiss to his lips.

“Dontcha trust me, Chaton?”

He gave a halfhearted grin. “Usually, M’lady. Make sure to add that we remember everything, I am definitely not going through that love square stuff again.”

She nodded slightly, biting her lip.

“See you on the other side.”

She made the wish.

~

He flinched and shielded his eyes from the bright light that emanated from the ring and earrings. By the time he was able to open his eyes again, he found himself sitting at his piano.

Adrien sighed. Wow, he could actually sigh again without hurting. Was this what breathing normally was like? He touched his no longer broken ribs. Man, he was never going to take those for granted again.

Well, at least that was good. Everything else around him was awful.

He was apparently in the middle of piano lessons… in the middle of a school day. Which meant that, in this reality, he had never attended public school.

Sure, he no longer really had friends there outside of Marinette due to Lila, but at least he had had Marinette. He scrolled through his phone contacts and sighed again. He had a whopping four numbers saved: Chloe Bourgeois, Kagami Tsurugi, Gabriel Agreste, and…

Emilie Agreste.

It worked. He didn’t really know why he was surprised. He wouldn’t be there right now if it hadn’t, it should have been obvious, but it hadn’t really sunk in yet. His mother was alive. She was present. He could see her right now if he wanted.

But he couldn’t yet. Mainly because he knew that the moment that he saw her he would likely break down, and he didn’t know how he would explain that.

Besides that, he hadn’t seen his mother in nearly four years. What was he supposed to say to her? Could he really go up to her and act like he’d spoken to her just yesterday?

His phone buzzed in his hand and he raised an eyebrow at the unknown number. He shrugged to himself and answered the call, pressing it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Chaton!” Said Marinette brightly.

He raised his eyebrows. “How do you still have my number? We haven’t met in this dimension.”

“I have it memorized.”

“Of course you do,” he murmured. Then he paused. “Wait a minute… aren’t you supposed to be in school right now?”

“Nope, Lila got me expelled again.”

“Again?! How do they keep falling for that?”

“I dunno. Seems like this one is permanent, though. I’m in online school now.”

He sighed and closed his eyes. “The hell? Do you know what changed?”

“No clue. Tikki and Plagg dunno either… or they just don’t wanna tell me because they’re still mad. I dunno.”

“I guess we’ll find out if the entire world gets wiped out by a plague or if we hit World War III in the next few days.”

Marinette gave a tiny laugh, though he could tell it wasn’t real.

Adrien opened his mouth to ask if they should spend some time looking into it… but then his door opened.

Emilie.

His breath caught in his throat. He was sure he looked stupid, his mouth hanging half-open as he stared at his mother, but he couldn’t care less. His eyes searched her face, comparing it to the last time he had seen her. There were a few more lines, her eyes were a little more tired, but it was undoubtedly his mother.

“Adrien?” Emilie and Marinette said at the same time, their voices laced with worry. Of course they were worried, he had been completely silent for over a minute.

He looked at the ceiling and blinked a few times to get rid of the tears threatening to spill over. Probably another reason they were concerned.

When he was sure that he could keep his voice steady, he spoke: “Sorry, I was just thinking.”

He knew she didn’t really believe him, the tiny frown on her lips made that obvious, but she wasn’t questioning him. Thank kwami. He didn’t even know how he could play that off.

“Are you done practicing for the day?” She asked.

“No, I just stopped to talk to my friend.” He brought his phone back to his ear. “I’ll call you back later. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Adrien,” she murmured.

The line went dead. He dropped his phone into his lap.

“Friend?” Emilie teased with a knowing smile. He felt a blush rise to his cheeks. “Chloe or Kagami?”

“Marinette. She’s…” He scrambled for a believable place he could have met her. “... I met her at her parent’s bakery and we really hit it off.”

His mother took a seat next to him. “Would you like to talk about her?”

“Uh… maybe later.” He said, despite intending to avoid the subject for as long as he could possibly get away with it. Not only was he scared of getting his story wrong if he talked too much about her but the idea of talking to his recently un-deaded mom about girls was just a bit uncomfortable.

“Alright… want to play piano together?”

“Of course.”

They opted for Chopsticks. Even if they could pull off almost any piece without a hitch, they didn’t really want to. It’s a lot of effort. Sometimes the basics are exactly what you need.

And, when they finished, they heard clapping.

Adrien flinched and looked around.

It was Gabriel Agreste. He leaned in the doorframe, clapping semi-sarcastically (after all, Chopsticks isn’t exactly to their normal standard), but he looked so… happy.

Adrien almost didn’t know what to do. When was the last time he’d seen his father like that? A smiling face, relaxed posture, and even casual clothes… was this even the same guy? It was hard to imagine this man could ever be Hawkmoth.

Emilie grinned and gave a sarcastic bow. “Thank you, my love. We tried very hard.”

His parents looked at him as if expecting something. But Adrien didn’t really know what to say. How do you interact with people you haven’t known in years?

“Are you alright?” Asked Gabriel, his eyebrows furrowed in concern.

Adrien couldn’t take it anymore. He pushed himself to his feet. “I need some air. Can I take my bodyguard out to a bakery?”

“I suppose... but what’s wrong?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he said, then fought back a wince. Well, at least it wouldn’t find it weird. They’d just think he was going through an angsty teen phase.

He grabbed his phone and wallet and gave a wave as he slipped out the door.

Adrien got into the car and leaned back in the seat. He mumbled the address to Marinette’s bakery and then typed out a message to his girlfriend to warn her that he was coming over.

He stared out the window as they cruised through the streets. He’d always hated being driven places, it always gave him a lot of time to think. His bodyguard wasn’t exactly the most verbally inclined person. He was always left alone with his thoughts. He hoped that he’d get to Marinette’s place soon, because he felt like he was going to go insane.

One thing. One thing had changed, and suddenly his life was the best it had ever been. Sure, in this world he didn’t go to school, but that was fine. It was apparently plausible that he would have met Marinette anyways, and at least then he wouldn’t have had to worry about Lila or find out Chloe was a horrible person.

Speaking of terrible people, his dad was, inexplicably, a decent father again. He cared about him and made jokes, it was like seeing an entirely different person. He couldn’t take it. He’d been so close to having this for the past four years of his life and yet...

The bakery came into view. He sighed in relief. Thank kwami. A distraction.

~

The first thing she’d done when she’d fully understood how her new life was going (hint: not well) was call Adrien. This was mainly so he’d have her phone number but also because she’d been a little scared that maybe the person who had died instead of his mother was him.

That would be one bitch of a butterfly effect.

She looked at the butterfly miraculous still in her hand. Pun not intended.

But, anyways, he was fine. She was happy to hear his voice, even if he sounded a little anxious.

Then he’d hung up. Marinette had heard a woman’s voice over the line, so she assumed that his mother had appeared (she doubted he’d hang up if it was just Nathalie).

So this wish had worked…

Great?

She looked at the pair of kwamis hovering by her. They were giving… disapproving looks, to say the least.

Marinette huffed a little. “What, was I supposed to let everyone die?”

“It will balance out,” said Tikki with a sigh as she settled into her normal spot on her shoulder.

“Well, could you at least tell me how?”

Plagg shrugged. “We don’t know. We don’t have any control over it, either.”

She sighed and pulled out her computer. Fine. She would just have to search the web. Surely, it would be something big. Either a bunch of people would have died that hadn’t before or someone important would either be dead or alive when they shouldn’t be.

So, she scoured the internet for things that had happened over the past four years.

But there wasn’t anything.

Sure, it wasn’t like she paid a lot of attention to news when she was twelve, but as far as she could remember everything seemed alright. There hadn’t been any major genocides, no major nuclear incidents, not even an out of place politician (she thought, though that one was harder for her to confirm).

She bit her lip and looked around until she found her bulletin board.

In the last dimension it had been covered with posters of Adrien but now it was empty. Huh. She supposed that made sense. She’d fallen for Adrien because he was kind and, from what she could tell, no one had been kind to this Marinette for quite some time.

She decided not to think about it too much. She could tell that her future was going to be depressing, she was going to avoid that for as long as possible.

Besides, she’d found the perfect distraction!

Marinette hummed to herself as she printed off headlines from all over the world (or, at least, translated versions of them) and started tacking them up. She put special emphasis on the ones that had to do with the past few days or the day that Emilie went missing by connecting them all with pink yarn.

And then the trapdoor was flung open.

She screamed and practically threw the bulletin board in an attempt to hide it (because she surely looked like a crazy person, or at the least a very invested conspiracy theorist).

She whipped around and then relaxed. Adrien.

“Oh, Chaton, hi,” she said, resting a hand over her heart as if that would calm it somehow. “Didn’t know you were coming.”

“I sent a text.”

She frowned and walked to where her phone sat on her desk, glancing it over and finding that, yes, he actually had texted her.

“Sorry, I was a bit distracted.”

He glanced at her bulletin board and raised his eyebrows slightly. “Seems like it.” He slowly climbed through the trapdoor the rest of the way and closed it behind himself.

Plagg floated over to him and dropped the cat miraculous into his hand. He didn’t even seem to think about it as he slipped it onto his finger.

They sent their kwamis out to recharge.

Marinette slowly pulled her bulletin board out again, propping it up against the bed.

“Anything seem off to you?” She asked, taking a seat by him on the floor.

His eyes flicked over the headlines for a bit, head tilting to the side as he thought. And then he sighed and shook his head. “I’m pretty sure that’s all right.”

“Me too. What are the chances that the whole consequences thing was a lie so we wouldn’t use the wish and get infinite power or whatever?”

Adrien gave a humorless laugh. “That sounds like something Master Fu would do but I don’t think Plagg or Tikki would do that. I don’t think they can even lie to us.”

They stared at the board in silence for a few more minutes.

“My dad is a good person in this reality,” said Adrien, his voice soft. “I was so… I was so close to having a normal family.”

She hesitated, unsure what to say to her boyfriend. She rested her head on his shoulder. His head rested on top of hers.

“At least you can enjoy him being nice now?” She tried weakly.

“Not really. It feels almost wrong now. He doesn’t feel like my dad, he feels like some random guy who happens to look like him. And, with my mom, I just don’t know how I’m supposed to talk with her. What do I say? What does she know? I don’t know her at all but she knows me so well and it’s weird --.” He cut himself off with a sigh. “Sorry, I just… I have a lot of emotions right now.”

“It’s okay, I’ll vent when you’re done. Make it fair,” she half-joked.

He gave her a halfhearted grin, his hand finding hers. “I’m pretty much done. If I kept going I probably just would have repeated myself. What’s wrong with new you?”

“Uh… mostly the fact that Lila got me expelled, apparently permanently because I’m in online classes and seem to have been for a while, and that I have about fifteen blocked numbers and two contacts. Not a good ratio to have.”

His thumb rubbed circles in the back of her hand she couldn’t help but relax a little.

“Guess we’re now we’re both homeschooled idiots with decent parents now. We can start a club.”

She laughed. “Remind me why I’m in love with you.”

“I’m hilarious, devilishly handsome, good with kids --.”

He was cut off by a kiss. She ran her free hand through his hair and he wrapped an arm around her waist.

They stayed like that for a while. It had been a long few days and they were perfectly happy to just relax together like this, even if it was only for a moment.

But, eventually, she pulled away. He rested his forehead against hers as they caught their breath.

He broke into a cheeky grin. “Is that how you’re always going to shut me up? Because I have so many more good attributes that I can list off. We could do this for hours --.”

She kissed him again, though this time they were both laughing a bit too much to take it seriously.

Did they know, somewhere, that avoiding their problems like this wasn’t doing them any good? Sure, but that didn’t mean that they were going to stop.

~

Adrien sat on a park bench, staring at where the statue of Ladybug and Chat Noir used to sit.

He wondered, vaguely, what that artist was doing now. Did they still do art? What were their subjects?

It was always weird to think about all the lives they had affected but he’d found himself thinking about it far more often now that they were practically nameless.

Alya still had a blog dedicated to vigilantes, though it was for ones all over the world and the style was different. Lila lied about how she’d known the Waynes before they’d died instead of how she knew Ladybug and Chat Noir. The usual debates about which Parisian hero was cooler were replaced by talk of gameshow contestants.

He’d never done heroism for that kind of reason, he’d had enough fame as Adrien Agreste to satisfy him for this life and the next, but it almost like all the work he’d done as Chat Noir had been useless.

Maybe because, technically, it was now. If Hawkmoth had gotten the ladybug and cat miraculi first day the world would have likely been the exact same as it was for him now. Three and a half years of work, and all of it could have been avoided.

He felt someone sit down beside him on the bench and he sent his girlfriend a tiny smile.

“You came,” he chirped, wrapping his arms around her tightly and pulling her into him.

She laughed. “Yeah, obviously, you would have never let it go if I didn’t,” she joked, wrapping her arms around him as well.

Their smiles slipped a little as their eyes fell on the blank spot where their statue had been.

“I miss being a hero,” he breathed.

She didn’t say anything for a long time, and he was starting to wonder if she’d even heard, but then she mumbled her answer: “Me too. It feels like something’s missing.”

He nodded his agreement, though he got the feeling that they were talking about it in different contexts.

“It’s weird. I used to hate being a hero but, now that I’m not anymore, it’s almost like there’s nothing to do. It’s just not the same.”

Yep. They were thinking different things. He didn’t mind, though. What does the reasoning matter when they were both feeling the same?

So, he’d laughed quietly and gave her a theory he had for her problem: “I think we messed up our adrenal glands. Nothing is dangerous enough for us to really get that high, so everything feels weird.”

“Well…” She began, a smug grin on her face.

He rolled his eyes. “Nothing legal gets nearly dangerous enough,” he corrected himself.

She laughed a little and rested her head against his chest. He rubbed tiny circles into her back.

“We could still be heroes, you know…”

He raised his eyebrows a little bit. “Sorry?”

“I mean… who says we have to stop?”

“The fact that there’s no supervillains for us to fight here.”

She gave him a tiny shrug. “Then we don’t do it here.”

He fought the urge to facepalm. Of course. How had he not thought of that before? There were plenty of supervillains and there was absolutely no way that all of them already had heroes to face off against.

(And, on top of that, they were kind of avoiding their problems. It was much easier to do that when all your problems were in a different city.)

“Have you ever heard of Gotham? It’s got a lot of crime and pretty much no one protecting it.”

He tipped his head back against the back of the bench and tried not to laugh.

They had both come to an understanding back when they’d started that they would be protectors of Paris for as long as Hawkmoth ruled, then it would be over. They had thought they might remain friends but all superhero business was definitely coming to an end.

Oh, how plans had changed.

She must have taken his silence for hesitance, because she quickly backtracked: “We have two years before we can move out anyways, so we have a lot of time to decide --.”

“I’d love to, M’lady.”

She stared at him with wide eyes. “Really?”

He grinned and pressed a kiss to her nose. “Is that even a question? Fighting crime with you until we grow old? Sounds like a dream, honestly.”

Her face reddened to the shade of her costume.

“Oh… good.”

“Good,” he agreed.

They laid back on the bench together and smiled as they imagined what they could be doing in two short years.

~

They were, in fact, two very long years.

It turns out that avoiding people is very hard. Especially when they live in your house (Adrien) or when they purposefully drop by every few days to gloat (Marinette).

It was a testament to their patience that they didn’t just grab their stuff and move out a few weeks in.

But, if they had done that, they probably wouldn’t have gotten the same rush of relief that they’d had when they stepped out of the cab -- Gotham didn’t have a direct airport, it was too easy for criminals -- and seen Gotham for the first time.

They were free.

Marinette hummed to herself as she helped grab some bags from the trunk and then looked around with Adrien.

They’d purposefully chosen to get out in the middle of the city to gauge how bad it was, and it was somehow even worse than they’d thought it’d be. Someone was selling drugs like they were hotdogs, yelling ‘coke’ at the top of his lungs. An old lady had pulled a gun on an actual hotdog vendor. A cop was taking a bribe to turn the other way so some kids could hotwire a car.

They broke into wide grins.

“We have some work to do,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow at their bags. Her face dropped into a pout.

“Fiiiine, we’ll unpack first.”

He laughed and waved her along.

~

They smiled as they stepped into their new house.

Gabriel had tried to buy them an entire manor as a wedding present but they’d managed to talk him down to a normal house. It was in a decent neighborhood (by Gotham standards), it had a room for them and a guest room, it had an island counter in the kitchen. That was basically they’d all cared about.

Well, that and…

He carefully peeled up a few floorboards underneath their bed and she dropped the miraculous box inside. Thank kwami they’d thought ahead enough to get laminate flooring, they didn’t know what they would have done to hide it if they’d gotten hardwood or marble.

And then they’d gotten to work setting up the house. Most of the furniture was already there, but they still had to unpack their belongings.

Adrien… was not really allowed to do much of the unpacking. He’d wanted to help, but Marinette was very particular about both kitchen equipment and clothes. Sure, she definitely understood different folding methods and their effects and would likely be the only one using the kitchen, but he still wanted to do something. Unfortunately, those were really the only two things that needed being done.

He’d settled for watching her do things from a windowsill and giving occasional encouragement.

She was done within two hours.

He grinned. “Y’know, I miss France.”

“Already?”

“Yeah, Gotham has no sunny windows to sit in. It’s depressing.”

She pressed her lips together tightly to hide a smile. “That’s so sad. I feel awful for you.”

“I know!” He said, stretching out. “Ready to go, M’lady?”

“Well, yes, but we need to talk personas.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Personas? What about them?”

“No one knows who we are here. This is our one chance to change our personas.”

Adrien hesitated. Change their personas? The idea of it was foreign to him. Chat Noir had always been his way of expressing himself without worrying about how it would hurt him and his father’s reputations. Chat was such a big part of him, getting rid of him would be insane.

But he knew better than anyone that Ladybug was just an idealized version of Marinette.

While Chat had been great for his mental health because he had an outlet for all his feelings, Ladybug had had the opposite effect for Marinette because it made her feel inferior.

He smiled encouragingly. “I’m keeping mine the same, but if you want to change yours that’s perfectly fine.”

She nodded and bit her lip. “Hey, Tikki!”

Tikki popped her head out of the kitchen and then slowly came around, their paws behind their back as they tried to hide the macaroon she’d stolen with her body. “Yes, Marinette?”

Marinette looked like she was going to ask about the macaroon, because it was really easy to see, but then she apparently decided against it. “Can I change my outfit?”

“No, sorry.”

She pouted. “That’s stupid. Can I at least have a more practical weapon than a yoyo?”

“No, everything is set, sorry.”

Marinette groaned. “That’s it. I’m stealing a pipe from the street and using that.”

Adrien laughed, hopping down from the windowsill.

Tikki looked like she was going to argue, but Marinette transformed before she could.

“You’re totally going to get a lecture for that later.”

She clicked her tongue and rested her hands on her hips. “Not if I never get out of the suit.”

He rolled his eyes. “Smart, I see no problems with that plan. Plagg, claws out.”

“Nooooooo,” complained the kwami as he zipped into Adrien’s ring. The cheese he was holding dropped onto the floor at his feet.

They stared at it for a second, then Adrien shrugged. “Problem for later?”

“Definitely.”

The partners sent each other excited smiles as they slipped out a window.

~

For the record, they did try and do things the ‘ethical’ way originally.

Approximately three months. That was all that it took for them to break their no-killing rule.

Of course, they hadn’t really wanted to kill anyone. But…

Marinette stared at the body at her feet.

She tightened her grip on the bloody cane in her hand.

She was disgusted with herself… because she didn’t feel any guilt at all.

It had been necessary, it was very obvious that he wasn’t going to be serving any hard time. After the second time they had caught him she had researched him and found that he was an assassin that worked for the mob. He would always be bailed out.

The police were corrupt. She knew that. It was pretty much the only consistent thing in this world, but this was way worse than she was used to. They wouldn’t just openly let someone out because a mobster told them to, it would always be discreet bribery of the jury or judge.

No wonder the city was having such a hard time. This would be more work than they’d been expecting...

Adrien’s sigh brought her back to reality.

He held up his hand to use Cataclysm, but she grabbed his arm and held him back.

“No. I have an idea.”

He frowned, raising his eyebrows.

“Can you go to the craft store and get some spray paint? Red, black, and green. Please?”

The next day the mob found their assassin’s body stuck to the outside of one of their bars. On the door they found the words ‘We’re cleaning up the city’ in green and, underneath that, the words ‘Sorry about the mess, service workers’ in red. It was signed with a graffitied ladybug and black cat.

A few days later, the entire staff was found dead.

The lucky ones had found their deaths quick, either beheaded by a yoyo string or shot with a gun stolen off another staff member.

Others had no bodies at all. All that remained of them were piles of dust.

The mob boss’s body had been found in the center of it all, broken and bloody. He’d had the most painful death, it seemed. He’d been beaten to death with what forensics had later identified as a cane and a staff.

But, while the police were concentrating on the massacre that the Parisians had left behind, the criminals had focused on the words that had been left on the building.

The green was the more basic of the two, a simple ‘We told you we were going to, you should have prepared’.

In red, though, was what was later dubbed the Crime Tier List. Here, they had detailed how they would punish different crimes. At the bottom was ‘Juvie’ which had only listed ‘Kids’. At the top was ‘Murder’ which had included, most notably, ‘Serial Killers’ and ‘Mobsters’.

Needless to say, people were a little bit more hesitant to commit crimes.

They didn’t stop. Obviously. It was Gotham.

But they did start doing things more discreetly. You could no longer find cops accepting bribes on the street or muggings out in the open or drug vendors yelling about their wares.

Instead, Gotham leaned in to a different part of its underworld, focusing more on organized crime.

Marinette and Adrien grinned at the blurry photos of their personas found in an alleyway, giving a reward for information. If they were already putting out a hit on them then the higher ups must be at least a little concerned about what they might do to them.

Good. They should be concerned.

~

The police tried to capture them one time.

They actually succeeded in capturing Marinette.

And then quickly realized their mistake.

She hadn’t been concerned as a gun was pressed to her back. Sure, the gun would definitely kill her. She wasn’t completely invulnerable, and her patented Ladybug Luck could only do so much when a glock was pressed to her skin. Still…

She handed over the woman that she had caught hotwiring a car and dropped the photo evidence she’d collected on the nearest desk.

“You’re under arrest for murder,” said the officer behind her.

She hummed lightly to tell him she understood (Miranda Rights and all) and let him cuff her.

And then she’d let them throw her in the holding cell.

Really, her nonchalance should have been a red flag for them. If a person you’re arresting isn’t concerned about getting caught, then you should run. Shit’s gonna go down.

She had sent up an alert to her husband with her yoyo and taken a seat in the cell. There were other people there. A good amount had actually been brought in by her or Chat Noir. But none of them dared to come near her.

An hour in, every light in the police station had flickered.

Marinette grinned widely and pushed herself to her feet. “Sounds like my cue to leave. You guys should leave, too, I doubt he’ll be happy.”

“What do you --?”

The lights went out.

She pulled on her arms until she had managed to snap her cuffs. There was a tiny yelp from nearby at the sound of the chain breaking, she didn’t pay it any mind. She rubbed her irritated wrists and walked to the bars.

Marinette leaned towards where she knew the lock was. It really was unfortunate that she was going to probably be letting out the other criminals but, really, the police should have expected this. Besides, this was a lesson. They shouldn’t have tried to capture her, nor should they attempt it again in the future.

A person screamed and she glanced up.

In the doorway was a pair of glowing green eyes.

“Hey, Chaton, don’t kill them! We dunno if any of them are nice, but on the off chance that there is, like, one here we wouldn’t want to get rid of them…”

“Alright, M’lady!” He said. “But I’m still going to beat them up a bit.”

“Sounds good!” She chirped, straightening.

His eyes dimmed slowly until the room was completely dark once more.

She kicked the cell door open and couldn’t help but laugh at the wheeze of the nearby security guard getting flattened by the metal. Really, they should have expected that the door would come off. They deserved to get hit by it if they hadn’t moved.

She hummed lightly as she leaned over the security guard and she pulled the baton from his belt. She weighed it in her hands. Not as good as her cane but it would have to do.

She listened to Adrien working his way through the policemen towards her. He had the advantage. In the dark it would be stupid to use their guns, they’d be more likely to hit their comrades if they hit anyone at all. He could just take them down one by one with them swinging blindly at him.

Wait, no. Lights were flickering on. Handheld, just normal flashlights. It seemed that there were a few smart people. Not smart enough, though, because they had just announced their locations to the second person in the room that was out to get them.

She got to work as well. She carefully slipped around and started taking out everyone who had thought to get out a flashlight. They started flicking off quickly once the police came to realize that she was targeting them.

She felt a hand tap her shoulder and she whipped around, her baton swinging, only to have someone catch her arm.

Green eyes flickered with light in front of her and she relaxed.

“Chaton,” she greeted, her voice soft so no one could hear her.

He pressed a short kiss to her lips. “M’lady.”

She felt him scoop her up in his arms and clicked her tongue, but she still wrapped her arms around his neck. She buried her face in his shoulder as he ran through the precinct. Occasionally, she’d feel his body jerk as he kicked out at someone in their way, but otherwise it was a pretty smooth ride.

And then the precinct was quiet outside of panicked breathing and people groaning in pain.

The lights flickered back on a few minutes later.

They were gone.

~

They tried not to seem too interested when their personas were brought up.

They had a lot of practice in this, but they were more concerned about their images this time around. This was for many reasons, but the main ones were that they were now both using their own personality for their personas and that their new personas were less stereotypically heroic.

They had made sure to remain approachable. If they found someone walking home alone while on patrol they would hop down and offer to walk them the rest of the way. They smiled and waved and gave autographs and kissed babies...

But they were also killing people. Consistently. More often than not the people they were helping would be able to spot dark red stains on their suits or weapons.

So, when they had attended a function for the Gotham elites and he had heard their personas come up nearby, he couldn’t help but listen in a bit more.

Adrien tilted his head slightly towards the conversation as he sipped at his cranberry juice.

“... don’t you think Ladybug and Chat Noir are being a bit harsh?”

He winced internally. He didn’t know what he’d expected.

“I get wanting to clean up the city, but you can’t do that if the streets are full of blood.”

“Right? They’re killing people. What if those people ended up becoming better at some point? Now they never will…”

Adrien couldn’t bring himself to listen anymore, instead looking around aimlessly as he thought.

Of course the elite of Gotham would say that, they almost always benefited from the crime that occurred in the city.

Still, they had some points...

He spotted his wife a few tables away, uncomfortably bunching her dress in her hands as she talked with another woman, and pushed the thoughts from his mind.

He’d been doing that a lot recently…

Whatever.

Adrien made his way over slowly and stopped a short distance away. After all, the woman clearly didn’t mean any harm. Marinette had just been more… let’s call it ‘hesitant’ when it came to making new friends ever since Lila had taken all her old ones away.

“Wow, your dress is gorgeous! Did you really make it yourself?”

Marinette nodded slightly, biting her lip. “Yep... I have a company and everything…”

“A company at your age? That’s so cool!”

“Yep… I do commissions if you’d like one...” she said in a tone that very much said ‘please say no’.

“I’d love one, can I have your card?”

Marinette nodded and started digging through her purse. He saw her send a look at him out of the corner of her eyes, a ‘please help’, and he sighed to himself.

He downed his cranberry juice until there was just a few more drops of the red liquid left and then stumbled over to his wife. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, beaming.

She clicked her tongue lightly as if exasperated and looked at him. “Yes?”

“Want t’go ‘ome?” He slurred.

She gave the woman an apologetic look. “I really should get him home. I’m sorry.”

“That’s fine,” said the stranger. They sighed. “I do hope I’ll be seeing you next year?”

“Maybe. I’ll see,” she said, then she hooked her arm around him. “Right, let’s get you home…”

They waited until she had half-carried him over a block away to break the act. They kept their arms around each other but he was no longer leaning on her.

She tightened her grip on him slightly. “Sorry you had to leave early.”

He shook his head. “It’s fine. They sucked, anyways.”

“Really?”

“Yeah…”

They trailed off, lost in their thoughts as they walked through the streets of Gotham.

He was the one to break the silence: “M’lady?”

She hummed to tell him she was listening.

“What if…” He sighed. “What if the thing the wish changed was us? I mean, we’re killing people because of it. That would be the kind of irony you expect from things like this…”

She hesitated, the slight frown on her face unreadable.

And then she giggled.

“What do you mean that we’re killing people because Emilie is back? I’d still have been bored if we had been in the old timeline, so I at least would have still been doing this...”

“I doubt it. Because, in that timeline, you’d already failed one city.” He felt her flinch and sighed. “Sorry… but… I don’t think you would have been able to bring yourself to do this, risking another city and everything, if you hadn’t been able to get them back.”

She was quiet but he could feel the tenseness of her shoulders underneath him.

“And I wouldn’t have done this if I hadn’t felt like all our work in Paris was useless.”

She still said nothing, only taking out her keys and unlocking the door for them. They stepped inside and dropped onto the couch as a pair…

“And if Emilie hadn’t been brought back we wouldn’t have been as isolated.

He felt her curl into his side and snake her arm over his chest. He drew her in closer.

“This is the way it has to be,” she murmured.

Who was she trying to convince? Him? Or herself?

“Besides…” she added. “The system is broken. Fixing it will take a long time, but we can’t just let people get off in the meantime.”

He sighed and buried his face in her hair.

“You’re probably right, M’lady…”

“Always am, Chaton.”


	2. Dick Grayson

Years passed them by. It’s funny how that happens when no one in the house has a distinct schedule to follow. 

The hours blending together was actually really good for them as vigilantes. People couldn’t just plan around their normal patrolling hours.

Also, it meant that they could take days off without anyone thinking much of it.

Like today.

He glared at his reflection, touching his hair for the millionth time in an attempt to fix it. Or, rather, un-fix it. He was going for a messier look, why couldn’t he just get it to cooperate?

He gave his wife a pleading look. “Help?”

She clicked her tongue and looked him up and down a few times to get a gauge for his outfit (which he had purposely made too vague for her to get an idea of what they were doing) then rested her hands on her hips. “Well, I’d love to help…”

“But…?”

“But I can’t use my expertise unless I know where we’re going. There’s certain looks for different occasions, after all.”

He sighed. “C’mon…”

She bit her lip. “Fine. Just tell me how formal I need to be.”

“Casual…” He hesitated as he mulled it over. “But not jeans casual, more like day-dress casual. And wear darker colors, you could get stains on it.”

“There, was that so hard?”

He raised his eyebrow at her. “Considering I’m sure you’ve now guessed the surprise, I’m going to say yes.”

She gave him a cheeky grin and a wink.

He pouted. Man. He’d been so careful about keeping everything a secret from her. It was their tenth anniversary, he’d wanted to surprise her. He’d pulled out all the stops, even using cash for the tickets so she wouldn’t have an easy way to trace the payments.

Only to have it spoiled because of his hair.

Dang.

Then, she laughed and he thought that maybe it wasn’t so bad that she’d found out. The smile was worth it.

She reached up and started running her fingers through his hair. “As always, your problem is that you use too much hair gel… you never learn, do you…?”

“Maybe I do it on purpose to make you mess with my hair.”

She gave him a skeptical look and then pulled away. “Done. Time to get ready for… a carnival…? No… a circus.”

He pouted.

Marinette gave him another one of those laughs before slipping into the bathroom to change.

Two hours later they sat in a circus tent. Front-row seats, of course, they weren’t stingy.

She rested her head on his shoulder as they waited for everything to start. He stole some of her popcorn and smiled at the halfhearted glare he earned. His smile dropped when she dropped some onto his head. He pulled away from her to try and pick the pieces out.

“C’mon, Mari, my hair took so long. The paparazzi always checks on us on our anniversaries. I’m a model, you can’t do this to me --.”

And then the lights dimmed. And the ringmaster walked out.

The both of them tensed. The crowd was buzzing with excitment, but the two vigilantes gave each other wary looks. The ringmaster seemed almost anxious, his knuckles white on his cane.

Still, he gave a brilliant smile to the crowd as he announced the first act.

They relaxed the longer they watched. Nothing seemed to be going wrong, the contortionist was absolutely fine. So was the person doing aerial silks, and the clowns, the snake charmer…

Maybe the ringmaster was just new. He seemed to be growing more and more confident with each act. False alarm.

But then the trapeze artists came onstage.

Marinette murmured something about their outfits that he didn’t catch but knew was insulting.

The young performer smiled and waved to the crowd, then started climbing the opposite ladder as his parents.

The mom grabbed ahold of the trapeze and smiled as she hooked her knees over the bar, then held her hands out for her husband. The man jumped out and caught her hands.

And then the wire snapped.

The couple barely had a chance to scream before they hit the dirt.

The tent was completely silent.

And then the chaos started. Parents rushed to cover their kids’ eyes, people stumbled over each other as they ran, others surged forward to see better.

He could feel Marinette hop the railing in front of them to go check their pulses. There was no need, everyone could see it plainly, but she still tried.

Adrien didn’t move, his eyes locked on the kid.

He was standing there. He was hugging himself tightly, shaking, tears spilling over his cheeks.

He needed help.

A hand wrapped around his wrist. Marinette was pulling him out of the tent. He didn’t want to leave the kid alone but he couldn’t do that as Adrien Agreste. They needed to transform.

It took way too long to find a hiding place because people were already hiding in every obvious place they could think of. After a while they just broke into a trailer and dropped some money on the counter as an apology, unable to waste any more time.

They ran back into the tent and found that, to their horror, the police were there already.

Marinette mumbled a curse. “You deal with the kid, I’m going to steal some evidence before they get rid of it all.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and then practically disappeared.

Adrien found his way over to the child, who had been covered in a shock blanket. They flinched when he got closer and he gave his most award-winning smile as he held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, I don’t want to hurt you, I promise.”

They looked kind of skeptical, but they did scoot over a little on their bench so he could sit down.

He sat as far away as he could, setting his baton at his feet carefully. “What’s your name, kiddo?”

His eyes never wavered from the front of the tent. It was like he was waiting for something or someone, but Adrien couldn’t guess what.

“Dick.”

“Well, Dick, do you have any family that I can take you to?”

Maybe that was what he was waiting for --?

“No.”

His smile disappeared. Ah. Not great.

He followed his gaze to the door and mulled everything over.

The kid didn’t seem to be in much of a rush, the shock was wearing off but it would still make the passage of time kind of weird for him. Adrien could take the time to think his next words through.

He’d met kids who had lost their last remaining family members before. Sometimes Marinette and Adrien just couldn’t get there in time and she wouldn’t be able to bring them back. It was an inevitable and unfortunately common part of their jobs. But every single time felt like a punch to the gut.

But he couldn’t let that show, not really.

He watched the kid out of the corner of his eyes. You always base your approach on how the kid is reacting in the moment. Some wanted open comfort, but this one didn’t want that if the way he’d flinched when Adrien had come close was any indication. Others wanted to just talk, also not going to happen considering the short answers he’d been given thus far. This kid seemed to just want to be left alone, but leaving a child in a vulnerable state was never a good idea.

So, what was he supposed to do?

He sighed. “I’m really sorry about what happened, these kinds of accidents --.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Adrien blanked. “Sorry?”

“It wasn’t an accident.” Dick hugged the blanket tighter around himself. “There was two guys. Mean-looking. Tried to get Mr. Haly to do some… protection payments? Left all mad and stuff. Said they would get paid or get payback.”

He was so shocked that the kid had given an answer with more than a few words in it that his brain buzzed right past the information he was given and he had to backtrack to actually process it.

And, when he did, his fists clenched.

“Did they mention any names?” He asked quietly, fighting to keep his voice level. This was still a kid who needs help, he couldn’t allow his anger to mess that up.

“Zucco.”

Adrien filed that information away for later and then gave the kid a once-over. They were no longer staring at the door, instead just fidgeting under their blanket. It was good that they were coming out of shock, but he doubted that Dick would see it that way. The numbness would be wearing off soon, and the feelings that would come to take its place would be painful.

He did the only thing he could think of: try and distract the kid. Good to see he’s passing on the unhealthy coping mechanisms.

“Hey, are you going to stay in the circus?”

“Can I?” Said Dick. He didn’t seem all that excited, just confused. As if he hadn’t thought that an option.

Adrien shrugged. “I mean, there’s that whole thing about ‘running away and joining the circus’. Even if they force you into an orphanage, you can probably just come back here.”

“I hear orphanages suck.”

True. He doubted that Dick would get the mental health treatment he needed (if he got any at all) and the money at those kinds of places were always stretched thin, especially in Gotham. He didn’t like the idea of sending the kid there, but what other choices did he have?

Before he could really think of an answer a hand clapped itself over his shoulder.

He barely even looked back. He knew who it was going to be. He fought back a groan.

“Ross,” he said, the smile on his face becoming more strained. He wasn’t going to fight in front of Dick, the kid was already stressed enough. “Nice to see you again.”

The cop didn’t seem all that concerned about niceties, his grip tightening on Adrien’s shoulder. “Get away from my witness.”

“He has a name. And he doesn’t know anything. Leave him alone.”

Dick frowned. “But I --.”

Marinette popped up out of nowhere, arms crossed over her chest as she openly glared at the officer. “You guys should keep better track of the evidence you actually do have, someone might take it.”

Officer Ross went pale and then ran to his partner to ask where the evidence was.

Adrien was also pale, though for different reasons. This kid didn’t know that the police were corrupt and that telling them anything would likely end in him getting killed? He couldn’t let that happen. Where could he keep him that they wouldn’t check? An orphanage or the circus wouldn’t work, those would be the first places they’d go…

He brought a smile to his face as he carefully leaned towards the kid. To his delight, he didn’t flinch or lean away. Progress!

“Hey, I’ve got some friends that I think I can give you to. Good people. They’ll take care of you until we can find something more permanent, sound good?”

Dick looked a little skeptical but he nodded.

Adrien carefully scooped the kid up in his arms and looked at his wife. “I’m going to take him, you can go home for the night and relax.” He sent her a discreet wink.

She smiled faintly and gave Dick a tiny wave before slipping out of the tent.

Good. She’d understood.

~

She had definitely not understood.

You see, winks are ambiguous.

Adrien’s wink had meant ‘Get home and brush up on your acting skills because we need to sell this’.

She had thought his wink had meant ‘It’s our anniversary and we shouldn’t be working anyways. Go ahead and head home, we’ve already done too much and I want to relax with my darling wife’.

So, when she’d gotten home she’d detransformed and slipped into some comfy pajamas and plopped herself down on the couch to watch some TV.

And then the door had opened.

She’d smiled and poked her head up. “Back already? That was quick --.”

Adrien was still holding Dick to himself.

Tikki gave a quiet gasp of surprise and zipped between the couch cushions.

Her husband smiled. “Hey, can I cash in a favor?”

Marinette opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, and then pursed her lips tightly. She couldn’t exactly say ‘no’, because now that she thought about it they really didn’t have any other options (kids have a tendency to have no filter and this one seemed to lack any common sense at all if she was judging by his outfit)...

Didn’t mean she couldn’t be bitter. They should have had more of a conversation about this than a wink, and she was going to tell him that:

“I don’t know, Chat, my husband isn’t here right now. This is the kind of thing you’re supposed to discuss with your partner.”

Adrien winced almost imperceptibly and had the decency to look sheepish. “I’m sure he’d be fine with it. Please, I have nowhere else I can take him.”

She bit her lip and looked at the kid, then squeezed her eyes shut.

There was a more selfish reason that they both wanted to do this…

They wanted kids. It had just never really been an option for them. If she wanted to get pregnant, she would pretty much have to give up crime-fighting for those nine months (and possibly permanently, that stuff has long-term effects). They couldn’t really bring themselves to adopt, either, because their lives were hectic and every single book in the world says that adoptees need a stable home.

She couldn’t let their wishes cloud their judgment. She was supposed to be the rational one. They would certainly mess this kid up, taking him wasn’t an option…

But leaving him wasn’t an option…

And it was kind of like the universe was dropping Dick into their laps…

Dick started to sniffle, bringing a hand up to wipe his eyes. Damn. She’d taken too long and now he felt rejected.

Her heart clenched. The kid didn’t deserve this...

“I… we can take him… but only temporarily. We need to find a better home for him eventually.”

It was best that none of them got their hopes up. This wasn’t a good solution, just the only one they could think of at the moment. At some point they’d think of a better one, and they’d have to do that.

Adrien and Dick both nodded.

Marinette slowly walked over and leaned down slightly to be at the kid’s eye level. “I’m Marinette Agreste. What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Richard. You can call me Dick, though.”

Listen. She wasn’t proud of what she’d said. But she’d never heard it before -- she was far less social than Adrien was -- and, really, how do you get the name ‘Dick’ from ‘Richard’?

“I don’t think you understand how much I cannot do that.”

Adrien had had to set Dick down, he was laughing so hard.

~

When he came home (as Adrien, this time), he was surprised to see Marinette stress baking.

He wasn’t sure why he was surprised, adopting a child is a stressful situation even if you had been expecting it. And they definitely had not been expecting it.

He watched her bake for a moment in the doorway.

She clicked her tongue. “Are you just going to watch me bake or are you going to come inside? Or do I have to make a ‘look what the cat dragged in’ joke everytime I see you, now?”

He smiled and took a seat on the counter. “What’re you making?”

“Cookies.” She turned around for some flour and then sent him a half-hearted glare when she saw him sitting next to it. “I was using that counter.”

“Unfortunate.”

Marinette clicked her tongue again and then moved to another spot. “When...” She grimaced a little. “When… the kid wakes up from a nightmare -- because there’s no way that he wouldn’t have one after tonight -- I’d like to at least have something sweet ready for him. I know we’re not his parents or whatever, but he should at least feel welcome while he’s here.”

He sobered a little, pulling a knee to his chest. “The whole vigilante thing… we’re going to have to put it on hold for a little while, you know…”

“There’s no way we can properly take care of a kid and be Chat Noir and Ladybug. Or, at least, we’d need to make some changes.” She procured a whisk out of seemingly nowhere and started whisking the batter.

He raised his eyebrows. “Changes?”

“We could take shifts. I’d take night shifts as Ladybug and day shifts parenting the kid. You do the opposite.”

“We’d burn out,” said Adrien with a sigh.

“Well, what are we supposed to do? Give the city over to Superman? Guy is shady enough as it is.”

He rolled his eyes. “He’s not shady, you just can’t handle people being nice to you.”

“MY POINT IS that we can’t just stop protecting the city. Especially not if the mob is going after circuses of all things.”

“Yeah, why are they doing that? Is there really money from circuses? Aren’t they all going out of fashion because of that whole ‘animal abuse’ thing most of them have going on?”

“As they should,” she murmured. She finished whisking and started searching for something in the drawers. She procured a scoop and started making rows of cookies. “But, probably, smuggling. No one bats an eye when circuses cross borders, that’s kind of their whole thing.”

He nodded slowly. “Fair enough. Still seems like a hassle, especially now that they’re probably going to be more heavily regulated because those people died.”

“Well, hopefully their sacrifice won’t be in vain. The bit of trapeze wire I stole from the police might give us some leads on the guy’s pseuds.”

“Are you calling up Nygma?”

She shrugged and set the cookies in the oven. “Kinda. He hasn’t done anything in three months, so he’s due any day now. I’ll talk to him about it after saving whoever he captured this time… unless you want to talk to him instead?”

He grinned. “No, I could never go instead of you. You like making fun of his outfit too much.”

“Awwww, thanks, Chaton,” she cooed. She took a seat next to him and pressed a short kiss to his lips. “You know me so well.”

“Well, we’ve been partners for fifteen years. You’d hope I’d know you by now.”

She smiled faintly and leaned into him. She watched the timer tick down for a little while in silence, biting her lip.

“What’s wrong?”

“I mean, even if the trapeze was sabotaged, what are the chances that the acid is something special that we can trace to him? One of us is going to have to go undercover.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And leave Dick alone?”

“There’s no way Zucco is only going after this one place. We can’t take back what’s happened to him, but we can at least make sure he’s the only one to have to go through this.”

Adrien frowned. She was right, though he hated it. While they had given themselves the obligation of taking care of Dick, they couldn’t just drop everything for him. Especially considering their jobs.

“Okay, M’lady, what’s the plan?”

“Well, I hear that the circus is looking for new trapeze artists.”

~

She smiled as she set the last of the cookies in the Tupperware and started heading towards Dick’s new room.

Her conversation with Adrien had gone a lot better than she was expecting, honestly. She’d explained her reasoning for why it would be safe now and he’d, however reluctantly, agreed that she’d made sense.

She decided she’d wait a few days for everything to end up in the news properly before asking to join the circus. After all, it would be suspicious if she called just a few hours after a tragedy.

She stopped outside the former guest room and considered knocking… and then decided she’d better not. On the off chance that Dick wasn’t having a nightmare, she didn’t want to wake him.

She pressed the door open and then stopped cold when she saw that the kid was crying.

Marinette glanced behind her, wondering if she could get away with just walking past and acting like she was going to the bathroom or something. She wasn’t good with emotions, not with people close to her. Random people on the street were fine, people she’d never have to interact with again were fine, but this…

She was not nearly as good as Adrien… but Adrien was asleep, the fucker...

“Miss Marinette?” Said the kid.

She winced mentally and reached along the wall for the light. “Yes, sweetie, it’s me.”

The light flicked on and she saw Dick duck his head so his hair would hide his face.

“I brought cookies,” she said awkwardly as she walked over and took a seat on the edge of his bed. “I didn’t know what you’d like, so I just went with chocolate chip.”

He nodded slightly and mumbled his thanks as he took the Tupperware from her.

She bit her lip as he nibbled at her cookies, and then couldn’t help but smile at the way his posture relaxed a little.

“These are good.”

“My parents were bakers. I’d have been disowned if I couldn’t make chocolate chip cookies.”

He cracked the tiniest of smiles.

She floundered again in the new silence. There’s a difference between comfortable silences and awkward ones and this was definitely feeling more on the awkward side.

“I could teach you to bake, if you’d like. I doubt you had time to learn on the road.”

He hesitated. “I’d burn the place down.”

“That’s okay. If I could teach Adrien to cook then there’s hope for anyone.”

She had not, in fact, been able to teach Adrien to cook. He had set the entire kitchen on fire in what they now called The Brownie Incident… but Dick didn’t need to know that.

He smiled a little more and leaned back against the bed frame, still eating cookies. He had to be on his third one by now. She wasn’t going to call him out on it, though.

She glanced him over. He was no longer really hiding his face, and the tears had stopped sliding down his cheeks. He seemed content. She didn’t want to drag any feelings back, but...

“Would you like to talk about your nightmare?” She asked quietly.

“No.”

She winced internally. “Okay. Would you like me to leave?”

“No.”

Marinette let a little bit of surprise show on her face for just a second before slowly scooting over to lay next to him. She took a cookie he offered her and closed her eyes, relaxing a little.

“Are you going to sleep again?”

“No.”

“That’s okay. Do you want that baking lesson now?”

Dick giggled a little. “But we already have cookies…”

“Well, we don’t have any cakes, now, do we? Or brownies. And there’s other types of cookies!”

She peeked an eye open and couldn’t help but smile a little at the grin on the kid’s face at the mention of all the possibilities.

Then he gave her a suspicious look. “Are you trying to fatten me up like an evil witch?”

“Yes,” she said gravely. “I adopt little circus kids and fatten them up to eat. The entire house is actually made of candy.”

To her surprise and slight horror, he actually brought the corner of his blanket to his mouth. Then he spat it out. “Liar!”

“I…” She trailed off. She didn’t know how to respond to that. Moving on. “So, about that baking thing, how do brownies sound?”

He grabbed her by the sleeve of her pajama shirt and pulled her out into the halls with a bright smile. She had to do a half-jog to keep up with him.

“Shhhh, Mister Adrien is asleep!” He stage-whispered.

She scoffed. “Me?! You’re the one running!”

“Shhhhhhhhh!”

Marinette clicked her tongue once and allowed him to pull her into a full on jog as they raced through the house. Really, it was a testament to how tired he was that Adrien didn’t wake up.

She grinned and offered him a hand to get up on the counter, and then was reminded of the fact that he was a literal trapeze artist as he vaulted off of her hand and jumped over her head to get to it.

She whispered a quiet “holy shit” in English, then covered her mouth with her hand. She and Adrien had a sort of unspoken rule that you can only curse in English, it’s just a weird thing that bilingual households do where cursing in the second language just doesn’t count, but now this was an actual kid who spoke (as far as she was aware) only English. She can’t teach him curse words!

But he didn’t seem to hear it, instead smiling as he reached towards the sink and started cleaning his hands.

She washed her hands after him and then started pulling down things to make brownies. Should she do chocolate chips or just cocoa powder…?

She remembered The Brownie Incident.

She shivered.

Cocoa powder. Definitely cocoa powder.

She put some butter in the microwave.

“What does ‘holy shit’ mean?”

She wheezed. “Uh-- I-- um--.”

“I’m just messing with you. I already know.”

Oh thank fuck.

Well, maybe not. She was kind of glad that he was feeling comfortable enough to joke around with her, but… the idea of him secretly being a little shit, while not necessarily surprising, was a bit worrying.

“Okay… good? Just… don’t swear in front of Adrien. I don’t really care, but if he hears you he might think I taught you… so it’s just our little secret, okay?”

He smiled and made a zipping motion across his lips. She copied the motion.

Aw, she’d almost forgotten how cute kids were when they weren’t in dangerous or sad situations.

The microwave beeped and she hummed as she combined the butter, cocoa, and sugar. She stirred a bit and then handed Dick the eggs.

“Here, you can crack three of them into the bowl. Do you know how to do that?”

He huffed. “Yes!”

He, in fact, did not know how to do that.

She watched in open-mouthed horror as he attempted to just pull the egg open without cracking it.

“N… no, sweetie. You need to break it on the counter, first.”

He nodded and then slammed the egg on the counter.

Marinette wiped some egg off of the front of her shirt and then took a few breaths to steady herself. Now that the shock had worn off, she was very tempted to laugh and she was not going to do that to this poor, confused kid.

“I think I did it wrong.”

She snickered and then coughed to cover it up. “I… yes. I’ll show you how to do it.”

He gave a tiny smile as she took his hand and taught him how to crack an egg. He repeated the process with the other two eggs and she worked at cleaning up the mess he’d made.

… how the fuck was there egg on the wall? That was a good seven feet away from the island they were cooking on. Sure, he had to be strong to be an acrobat, but what the fuck?

She sighed and set the napkin done now that he was done and smiled as she added the vanilla, salt, and flour.

She handed him a spatula.

“Stir. Go wild, kid,” she said, 

Big mistake.

Dick took her words to heart, and she watched as he stirred madly, batter flying everywhere.

She laughed, only to get splashed with the batter.

She managed to stop his hand and sent him a tiny glare.

“I'm starting to think you’re doing this on purpose.”

“Whaaaat? No.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly, and then gasped when he lobbed a tiny bit of batter at her shirt.

“Oops,” he said, giving her a feral grin.

Marinette couldn’t help but smile back… then she reached past him and grabbed a handful of flour. She flicked her fingers and smiled when it got on his face.

He pouted and started rubbing his eyes. “Ow…”

Panic.

“Oh, sorry, did I get it in your eyes?” She leaned down. “Let me see.”

He nodded and slowly brought his hands away from his face and she checked his eyes with her fingers carefully --.

Only to feel an egg smash itself on top of her head.

She wiped some egg from her face and narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll get you for that one, you traitor!”

He squealed and set the batter down, then did a backroll away from her.

Marinette and Dick grabbed their weapons…

An hour later, they were both breathing heavily.

“Truce?” She said, lowering her flour-covered arm.

He nodded slowly… and then threw an egg at her.

She dodged it easily and glared at him, her hand already reaching for her flour again —.

“Now truce! Now truce.”

She hesitated, then clicked her tongue as she let herself relax.

They looked around the mess that was the kitchen... at the batter still somehow untouched on the counter… the oven, which hadn’t even been preheated yet…

“Do you just want to eat the batter?”

“Let me get some spoons.”

A few hours later, Adrien walked in… only to stop short when he saw his wife and new kid there, covered in cooking ingredients. Dick had fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder. She was fine with this, there was still some batter left.

“Um…?”

“Brownies are cursed,” she told him, then she took another spoonful.

“What?” Said a bewildered and still half-asleep Adrien.

She looked her husband dead in the eye as she pulled the spoon from her mouth with a tiny ‘pop’.

“Brownies are cursed.”

~

Adrien felt bad homeschooling the kid.

Really, it had brought him a lot of grief growing up. He hadn’t known anyone besides Chloe and Kagami until he was twelve years old.

But, as it turned out, Dick really needed to be homeschooled.

On top of just… having no formal education whatsoever and his general knowledge being a toss of the dice, it was also the middle of the school year and everyone knows you can’t just dump new kids into a class halfway through.

Adrien tipped his head back against his chair and closed his eyes.

Dick was taking a test to see what he had to teach him, but he wasn’t concerned about the kid cheating. What was he going to do? Sneak away, grab a textbook, and start flipping through it without him noticing?

He sighed.

The kid was… weird.

He was always smiling, always in motion, always affectionate. It was something they’d figured out quickly, but it had taken longer to notice that he was only like that when he was talking about things he actually wanted to. If they asked how he was doing, because it had only really been a week since it had happened, he would clam up and start semi-subtly shifting the conversation away.

He was avoiding his problems. And Marinette and Adrien really didn’t know what to do. He had stolen their unhealthy coping mechanism and now they were forced to stand back and watch as the kid destroyed himself the same way they did. And they knew it was a terrible coping mechanism, even Dick might have known it, but what were they supposed to do? They had been around much longer and they hadn’t found a better mechanism, what could they do for Dick?

He peeked an eye open and looked at the kid, who was chewing on the end of his pen as he thought through the question he was on.

… damn, he was actually going to have to learn how to cope, huh?

So, that afternoon, he passed Dick off to Marinette like a baton in a relay race and took a bus to the bookstore.

The psychology section was huge and filled to the brim with case studies. It was honestly daunting to look at. Instead, he made his way to the clerk.

The woman looked him up and down once. “Rough week?”

“You have no idea,” he muttered. “Can I have some recommendations for books on adoption, parenting, and coping with trauma? And also a highlighter, that would probably help.”

He skimmed through the parenting and adoption books. He and Marinette had already done this a few years back when they had first been considering kids, he was mostly just getting a refresher.

And then he turned to the five books on coping mechanisms he’d bought.

He took a deep breath and started looking methodically reading his way through it, highlighter in hand.

The next day, he found Dick, who was drumming his fingers on the table as he glared at the textbook in front of him.

Adrien had some suspicions about the kid in front of him, though he wasn’t absolutely sure yet. Still, he figured he should test his theory.

Besides, it would also help keep the kid safe and physical activity was one of the things a book on coping mechanisms had suggested.

Multi-tasking!

Or maybe it was just efficiency…

Whatever!

He smiled. “Hey, kid, want to try something different for today’s lesson?”

Dick looked up, frowning. “Like what?”

“Well… how do you feel about learning self-defense?”

~

“Where are you going?” Asked Dick with a tiny frown as she started bustling around the living room in search of her shoes.

“Uh… work!” She said.

They’d both agreed that telling Dick that she was going to go do the exact job his parents had just died in was a terrible idea, so they’d thought up a cover story… too bad she couldn’t think of it at the moment. She finally saw her shoes tucked under the couch and dove down to grab them, then sent her kid a smile.

“Have a good day, sweetie, I’ll see you later,” she said, walking over and pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

She ducked out the door and started running all over again. Her eyes found their way to her watch. It was a tryout and she was going to be late…

But she wasn’t.

Barely.

She stumbled inside with one minute to spare, panting, and it took everything in her not to slump over the nearest bench and die.

“Hi,” she wheezed at Haly, who raised his eyebrows slightly at her.

“You’re really cutting it close, here. Have anything to say for yourself?”

She rested a hand over her heart as if that would somehow bring it back to normal. “I need a fucking car.”

Haly paused, then nodded. “That explains that. I’ll let you off with a warning that you should try not to be late again.”

“Oka --.” She stopped, and then looked at him. “I got the job?”

He shrugged and pointed around at the empty tent. “You’re the only one here.”

Wow. She’d suspected that people would be less than eager to take the job offer, but to be the only person…

Well, she figured that she should just be thankful. That made things much easier.

She smiled faintly. “Cool. Should I still show you my skills and everything?”

He motioned to the trapeze. There was a net under it. The man had learned his lesson, at least. “Please.”

It turns out that being Ladybug is really helpful when you want to be a trapeze artist.

Actually, she found that being a trapeze artist was actually easier in some ways. Instead of having to hold tight to one thin string when swinging around, she was able to get a proper grip on a bar.

It was a lot of fun. Recently, she’d been using her cane more. Having a yoyo was impractical as a weapon when people were firing guns, so she’d more or less stopped using it. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to feel the wind in her hair. It was calming...

Also, she got to show off, which was always fun.

She stopped after a few minor tricks and gave a bow to Haly, who seemed to just be glad that she actually had an idea of what she was doing.

“You’ll need about a month of training before you do any shows. Do you have any other expertise?”

She shook her head. It was a lie, she would probably be good with aerial silks or contortionism, but she felt some weird need to do the trapeze…

Just then, her phone buzzed.

She glanced at it and read the news headline.

She groaned and turned to Haly. “Can I have a minute? I need to take this.”

The man nodded.

She scowled as she stepped out and dialled a number.

“NYGMA.”

“Ladybug!” Riddler said cheerfully. She could hear a woman sobbing in the background. “What’s up? Did you see the news?”

“Yes, I saw. I’m at a job interview!”

The smile in the man’s voice disappeared as he spoke next: “Oh, I’m sorry. I can reschedule the death trap.”

“YOU CAN, CAN YOU?”

“Yep! How does tomorrow sound?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to relax. “I can do tomorrow. Thank you. And let go of the poor lady, will you?”

“Fiiiiine.”

She hung up on him and then stepped back inside, giving Haly her brightest smile.

“I can start working in two days, if that sounds good to you.”

~

Adrien hesitated.

Really, he should be getting Marinette to train Dick on self-defense. They had similar movement styles…

But his hunch had been right. This kid seemed to learn a lot better when he was multitasking and, as much as he loved his wife, he didn’t think her English was good enough to teach someone else.

And, besides, he wanted to spend time with his kid, dang it!

He stopped Dick before he could throw another punch at the dummy to fix his form. “I know putting power into it is hard when you’re so little, but you need to rotate your hips so you can get at least some kind of force behind it.”

The kid pouted. “But this is so boooooooring. It’s just the same thing over and over again! I want to do cool stuff!”

“Not yet. You have to understand the basics before you start messing with it.”

Dick gave another pout, this time adding puppy-dog eyes, but, unfortunately for him, Adrien had never been fond of dogs. He raised his eyebrows, unimpressed.

The kid groaned and started punching the pads again.

“I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A, as in neighbor and…”

~

It didn’t take long for Marinette to notice The Guy.

She had a pretty good vantage point from the ladder to her trapeze. She would stop at the top, her hands up in a salute, and pause for ‘dramatic effect’.

Her eyes flicked over the crowd and locked on the face of The Guy.

He was at every show, his face pulled into a bored frown as he rested his head on his hand. He’d sit there the whole time, watching the same performance over and over again, and then leave the moment the show was over.

She pursed her lips for half a second before bringing her face back to its smile.

She’d brought a camera this time. This time she’d be able to get his face so she and Adrien could get information on him.

But, for now, she concentrated on making the first jump to the trapeze…

She sat down after her act, still breathing heavily. She was in shape… but, kwami, that kind of stuff is hard! Still, she couldn’t help but smile. She hadn’t been challenged in a while. It was kind of fun.

She wondered, vaguely, if this was what she’d be doing if she hadn’t gone back into crime fighting.

Marinette pushed that thought from her head as she downed her water. It wasn’t the time. She only had a few more minutes before she was on again for the outro. She needed the picture now.

She grabbed her camera from her locker and snuck her way to the stands, and pointed her camera --.

The Guy had spotted her. He looked directly at her camera, his face set in an even deeper frown than usual.

She quickly snapped the picture, then darted back behind the curtain. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. Shit! Shitshitshit --!

Okay. Breathe.

He wasn’t going to just kill her. If the way they’d offed the Graysons was any indication, they didn’t want to draw too much attention to the circus. It was unfortunate what had happened, but not suspicious. However, the trapeze was new and there was a net. An accident like that couldn’t happen again.

No, they’d probably wait until after the show. That would be fine. She could deal with that. At least then she could stall until she had energy by waiting with someone.

She felt a hand tap her shoulder and looked over at the contortionist. “Time?”

“Time,” he said simply.

She hid the camera and ran out with him, smiling like she wasn’t about to face off with a mobster.

Two hours later, she stepped into her train car and crossed her arms over her chest. “Right, I know you’re in here,” she said quietly.

Or, at least, she hoped so. Because otherwise she would be looking a little silly --.

Wait, a knife pressed to her neck. Maybe she wished she was wrong.

She clicked her tongue and leaned into her attacker, closing her eyes. “You Americans still say ‘yo’, right?”

The Guy tensed a little under her, and then whispered a confused, “No…?”

She huffed. “Damn. Why do you change your greetings so often? Whatever. Kaalki, a little help would be nice.”

“Who --?” Began The Guy, but he was quickly cut off.

Because a portal opened under them and dumped them into a back alley in Gotham.

Marinette grinned and grabbed his arm, using his confusion to lean forward and flip him over her shoulder. He cursed as his back hit the ground and the blade clattered to the floor.

She grabbed it nonchalantly and her eyes flicked over the hilt.

A name was engraved there.

Zucco.

“You mob people make this too easy. Now, tell me everything you know.”

He glared up at her. “They’ll kill me!”

“And what gave you the impression that I wouldn’t?” She twirled the knife in her fingers. “Quickly, please, I have a kid to get back to.”

A half hour later, he had spilled everything he knew.

And his guts…

She rolled off of him and glanced at the bloodied dagger in her hand. Her nose scrunched up as she dropped it beside him. There. Now it looked like a mob hit.

She pushed herself to her feet and dusted herself off, only to groan at the sight of the blood staining her front.

She gave the corpse a kick as she cursed him out:

“Asshole. I liked these clothes!”

~

He smiled as he pulled his wife into his side.

Dick had finally gone to bed, so it was just them two. For once.

Marinette had a show in an hour that she needed to portal back for, and Adrien needed to go out as Chat Noir soon, but they didn’t want to get up just yet.

She yawned and curled closer to him. “I guess…” She yawned again. “I guess I should tell you what I found out. Which is basically nothing. Apparently, hardly anyone has ever seen Zucco in person, just the higher ups. He just sends people to do his bidding.”

He groaned and buried his face in her hair. “Great. Did you at least give the sample to Nygma when you saw him yesterday?”

“Obviously.” Her watch beeped and she mumbled a curse. “Alright, I have to go.”

“Nooooooo.”

“Yeeees,” she said, gently pushing his chest until he let go. She stretched out a bit and then walked to the bedroom door.

It swung open before she even touched the knob.

Dick was standing in the doorway, hugging a Chat Noir doll to his chest. “I had a nightmare. Can I sleep with you guys?”

Marinette glanced at her watch and then at the kid and then at her watch again.

“Or are you guys both going out again?”

Adrien winced. “You noticed that?”

“It’s, like, every night,” he said irritably. He sighed and wiped his eyes a little bit. “Fine. I’ll just go lay down again.”

She bit her lip and then leaned down to look him in the eyes. “I’ll be back in four hours, okay, sweetie? Can you handle that?”

Dick looked at the ground. “Sure.”

Marinette grimaced. “I’m sorry.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll be back soon.”

They could hear the coatrack hit the ground in her hurry to grab her jacket and get out the door.

Adrien sighed and looked at Dick, who was still standing in the doorway.

He really should be going on patrol. The people of Gotham had begun to notice that Chat Noir and Ladybug had been showing up less frequently. Crime rates were rising…

He laid back in bed and opened his arms. “I won’t leave. Come here.”

Dick gave a tiny smile, though it seemed a little forced. Still, he got into bed and curled up in Adrien’s arms.

“Would you like to talk about it?” He tried.

“No.”

He sighed. “You’re going to have to talk about it, eventually. Avoiding it is just going to make it harder to deal with later.”

“Nope.”

He gave a tiny laugh. Dang. This kid really was just them but younger. Now all he needed was a miraculous and he’d be a perfect mini version of them…

“Where do you guys even go?” Asked Dick, his voice muffled in Adrien’s chest.

“Work,” he said after a few minutes’ deliberation.

“I thought you didn’t really have jobs.”

He laughed quietly. “Marinette has a million jobs, and I have my one. Though we don’t really get paid for what we do most of the time.”

“Why do you do it, then?”

Adrien raised his eyebrows slightly, then gave a tiny shrug. “Why did you do the trapeze?”

He’d meant for it to be a rhetorical question, meant for it to be something that would make Dick change the subject, so it was a complete surprise when the kid whispered: “It was all that I knew.”

Internally, he was screaming. It was happening! Finally! He had opened up a little bit!

Externally, he nodded and rubbed circles into the kid’s back. “Hopefully, we can make it so it’s not all you know. Help you branch out a little bit while you’re here.”

He felt tiny hands clutch the back of his shirt. “Can’t do that when you’re always gone.”

“I know,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

They stayed in silence for a long time. Adrien was pretty sure that Dick had fallen asleep, but he wasn’t going to move. The kid had noticed that they were gone often, but the two of them had always made sure to wait until he had fallen asleep to leave. He had to be waking up at least once a night, so…

He held the kid close to his chest.

A few hours later, the door creaked open.

Adrien opened an eye blearily and saw Marinette get into bed. He lifted an arm for Marinette to join the cuddle and smiled faintly when she actually did.

He let himself drift off.

~

A few days later, Marinette and Adrien came back from patrols to find Dick talking to the kwamis. All of them gave sounds of surprise when they saw the two vigilantes in the door and disappeared except for Trixx, who turned and fixed their purple eyes on them.

Marinette pursed her lips tightly for a second, considering what to say, and then decided on: “What the fuck, guys?”

Adrien removed his arm from around her waist so he could bury his face in his hands.

Trixx smiled. “It’s not what it looks like. He found us.”

“He…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “So… you’re telling me that this kid pushed our bed aside, pulled up the exact right floorboard, and pulled out the miracle box...”

“... yes.”

“Forgive me for being skeptical, but I’m not buying it.”

Dick pouted and hugged the tiny fox to his chest. “Are you mad at her?”

Marinette hesitated.

Before Dick had known about the kwamis, they had a chance of giving him back. They would have been able to find better parents for him, been able to give him a genuinely good life. But now… they couldn’t risk giving him up. The reason they’d taken him in in the first place was that he was relatively loose-lipped. Now that he knew something so important, there was no way in hell that they could risk him ever telling anyone.

Of course, she doubted they would have been able to give up Dick anyways. She’d grown annoyingly attached to the kid, he was sweet and generally made her life a little more fun, but now there wasn’t an option at all.

Still, this part of their lives… beyond needing to keep things a secret, it was extremely dangerous to involve a kid in this kind of thing.

Adrien answered first: “No, we’re not mad. Just… this wasn’t exactly the plan.”

“And what was the plan? Never telling me that we have a bunch of… what did they call themselves? Kwamis? Whatever, they’re gods. There are just gods living in our house!”

Marinette shrugged. “We weren’t telling you because we didn’t want you to get dragged into this part of our lives, sweetie.”

Dick huffed. “And are there any other secrets that I should know about?”

“They’re Ladybug and Chat Noir,” supplied Trixx.

“TRIXX?!”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY’RE CHAT NOIR AND LADYBUG?!”

The fox kwami laughed and disappeared.

Marinette scowled. “I know you’re still here, Trixx, where are you? I will hunt you.”

“Please, Mari, you don’t need to do that. Just get the fox miraculous and summon her here, it’s much easier.”

“Smart.”

“WHY HAVE YOU STILL NOT DENIED IT?!”

Marinette and Adrien looked at each other awkwardly.

Well… the secret was out.

She opened her purse and he opened his jacket, and their kwamis slowly poked their heads out to look at Dick.

Poor kid was not prepared.

He covered his eyes with his hands and took a few deep breaths. “So… I… wow…”

Well, she supposed there could be worse reactions.

“Wait, so are you investigating what happened with my parents?”

Like that. That was a worse reaction. Fuck.

Marinette carefully took a seat on the floor by her kid. Adrien sat down as well.

“We’re working on it,” she said carefully. “I’m following a lead and I got help from a… an associate of ours.”

Adrien nodded. “It will take a while. It’s just the two of us -- and Nygma, I guess -- so it’s not going to be done quickly.”

Dick removed his hands from his eyes and looked at them both. “I want to help.”

“No,” said both adults instantly.

“But --.”

“Nope,” said Marinette.

“I --.”

Adrien held up his hands. “Not allowed.”

Dick pouted and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why not? They’re my parents.”

Marinette shook her head slowly. “It has nothing to do with that. You’re a kid, we can’t just let you fight crime.”

“Oh? And when did you start fighting crime?”

“Eighteen,” said Marinette, which technically wasn’t a lie…

Which means it was unfortunate that Adrien gave a more accurate answer: “I was twelve, she was thirteen.”

She groaned and rested her head in her hands. “Damn it, Adrien.”

“So, when I’m twelve, can I join you guys?”

Marinette pursed her lips tightly. She didn’t want to be a hypocrite, but she also didn’t want to let an actual kid fight crime. She had fought crime as a kid, it had messed her up. She wasn’t eager to pass that on to someone else…

But…

“Fine. How about this: if we don’t solve it by the time you’re twelve you can join us for that case specifically.”

Dick pouted a little, but seemed to understand. “Okay.”

She and Adrien met eyes. They had three years to solve this case before Dick would get involved, and they couldn’t let that happen.

But it was three years.

How hard could it be?

~

He and Marinette sat on the floor in front of the miracle box, sorting the miraculi into two different piles: ‘Will Protect’ and ‘Can’t Protect’.

Once that was done, they started sifting through the ‘Will Protect’ pile.

“Turtle?” Marinette said.

Adrien shook his head. “Doesn’t fit his fighting style. Bee?”

She shuddered. “Don’t need another Chloe. Snake?”

They tipped their heads from side to side as they considered it, but then Trixx piped up: “I’m right here, y’know.”

The two vigilantes jumped out of their skin. Then they glared at the kwami.

“Must you always sneak up on us?”

“Yes. Anyways, I’m the best fit for the kid and you know it.”

Marinette pursed her lips. Adrien raised his eyebrows.

It was true. From the moment they’d started considering giving Dick a miraculous (because, even if they doubted he was ever going to get to that point, they figured they should at least make sure he was safe), they’d both been eyeing the fox miraculous…

Thing was…

“You’re just going to tell him more of our secrets,” he complained, sighing.

Trixx crossed their paws over their chest. “Do you really have any other secrets you care about?”

They considered this for a minute, before Marinette clicked her tongue.

“Fine. Fine! Adrien, you’ll need to train him on his powers, your secondary powers are closer than mine. I’ll take up sparring to teach him a fight style that better matches his circus training.”

Adrien pouted and fell back until his head hit her lap. “You don’t think I was teaching him well enough? Because our fight styles and training were completely different? I’m wounded, M’lady. I’ll never recover.”

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips.

He smiled. “I’ve been cured.”

She clicked her tongue.

Adrien smiled…

And then her watch beeped. He groaned and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her stomach. “Nooooo, don’t gooooooooooo.”

“I can’t just not go, Chaton.”

“Why nooooot? It would be so easy.”

She slowly peeled his arms off of her, smiling fondly. “Relax. I’ll be back later. Hang out with… with Di --... Nope. With the kid. Maybe train him a little in his powers or whatever.”

He laid on the floor with a pout as he watched her leave, and then looked down at the necklace in his hands.

Well, he supposed he might as well. What else could he do? Protect the city? Nah.

He walked to his kid’s room and rolled his eyes when he saw the kid standing with his ear pressed to the wall.

“Hello?”

Dick’s face reddened and he turned to Adrien with a bright smile. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Wow, he really was a good fit for Trixx.

He sighed and offered the necklace. “You’re not in trouble. C’mon, we’re going to teach you to use these powers.”

Trixx floated over to rest on Dick’s shoulder and Adrien waved him along to the training room.

Adrien held up a hand before walking to the window and quickly shutting the curtains.

He smiled as the kid transformed.

Adrien stretched lazily. “Right, on your back right now is a flute. It… works like a flute. You can play music with it if you want, and also hit people with it if you want. It also summons your power.”

Dick nodded and pulled it off his back. “What can I do?”

“You play a note and envision an illusion of some sort. The limit is just your imagination.”

“Like a Green Lantern?”

“I… kind of. You just have illusions, if you touch them they disappear.”

“That sucks.”

“I guess. Alright, so you’re probably going to have side-effects.”

He watched the kid’s eyes widen and rushed to explain: “It usually isn’t bad. Just weird. It’s why I like to sit on counters and why Mari’s always so cold. It also changes looks a little. Like… Mari has a lot more white in her eyes and my hair has those two little tufts that I have to gel down.”

Dick’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Okay. So… powers.”

“Yep.”

He pulled out his flute.

Adrien smiled. “Right, let’s start simple. The main thing you need is a clear vision. I’m going to close my eyes and you’re going to make something appear in the room. If you’re doing it right then it should appear real, if not then we’ll figure out what’s going wrong.”

He closed his eyes and waited for a few seconds after he heard the shrill note of the flute. Then he opened his eyes.

And came face to face with a giant, bright pink inflatable elephant.

“I…”

Dick grinned. “Think we should address the elephant in the room?”

He blinked once, then broke into a matching grin. “You’re what’s been missing from my life. Oh my kwami. That was beautiful.”

Then he actually went to inspect the elephant. It was pretty good. The lighting was a little off but it wasn’t plainly obvious it was fake, if he wasn’t paying attention he doubted he would’ve noticed. That made sense. Powers were usually pretty instinctual.

He nodded slowly. “Now try something that makes sound.”

Dick brought the flute to his lips and played another note.

He had expected the elephant to disappear and get replaced by something. Instead, it let out a high whine as the air in it slipped out of a new gash on its side.

Adrien smiled.

“Nice.” He sighed and let his smile lessen. Now for the reason they had thought the fox miraculous could be used for protection: “Okay. Make yourself disappear.”

He got a frown for that one. “Sorry?”

“It’s… you’re still a kid. You need to know how to cloak yourself so you don’t get hurt. We can’t really stop you from coming with us in an ethical way, but we need to at least make sure you’ll be okay if you come along.”

Dick frowned. “I thought you were going to let me help.”

“In three years. If we haven’t already solved this case yet. And if we think that you’re going to be able to handle it.”

“But --.”

“We were heroes at a young age. True. We weren’t ready for it, though, and we don’t want to screw up a kid in the same way we were screwed up. That’s the whole thing about having kids, we want you to have a better life than we did.”

The kid gave an annoyed expression before bringing his flute to his lips. With a shrill note, the annoyed face disappeared.

Adrien tipped his head from side to side as he considered this. He was pretty sure that he could sense something off, but he wasn’t sure if that was just his mind messing with him because he knew that Dick was there…

He walked towards where he’d last seen him to make sure and then stopped short when he realized what was off. His feet weren’t making any sound.

There wasn’t any sound at all, actually.

“You’ve done too much. You got rid of all sound, not just your own.”

Dick appeared, a grin on his face.

“This is boring. Can we make it into a game? Like hide-n-seek?”

Adrien hesitated, then shrugged. “Don’t see why not.” He brought his hands up to cover his eyes. “Thirty… twenty-nine…”

~

She hummed absently as she and Dick stretched to warm up.

She was a little jealous, if she was honest, he was way more flexible than she was even though he was out of practice and she wasn’t. She’d been stretching before this kid was even born. How dare he still be more flexible than her.

Still, she rolled to her feet and offered him a hand up.

Dick’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly and he did a backhandspring from the floor.

How the fuck?

But she wasn’t going to act like this was an amazing thing. She was already bitter enough about his flexibility, admitting that he was also better at gymnastics would be even worse.

Instead, she grinned. “Hey, kid, what should we call you?”

He thought for a minute, taking his flute out and twirling it in his hand like a baton. “Robin?”

“I…” She held up a finger to say ‘one minute’ and then pulled out her phone. After a quick google search to make sure they were talking about the same animal, she gave her kid a confused look. “You’re a fox.”

“Yes.”

“Robins are birds.”

“Yes.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She really didn’t know why she asked a kid who called himself ‘Dick’ to name himself. Really, she should have expected this.

Marinette shrugged to herself. “Fine. I’m just gonna keep calling you ‘sweetie’.”

“Okay!” He stopped twirling his flute and pointed it at Marinette. “So, you’re going to teach me to use my circus training for fighting?”

She sighed and pulled out her cane, leaning against it. “Right. I’ll need to check to see how well you know the basics, first, though.”

Dick groaned. “I’m ready. I feel like I’ve been ready for ages!”

“I know, I know, but I need to make sure, okay?”

He gave her an annoyed look.

Marinette pursed her lips tightly. “Okay. Fine.” She dropped her cane. “Spar with me.”

Dick’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Yep. You’ll have first swing and I won't get a weapon.”

True to her word, she let him have the first swing. She dodged and grabbed his arm, then pressed her foot to the middle of his back. He hit the ground with a groan. She pulled the flute from his hand and sent him a tired glare.

“You got lucky,” said Dick, his voice muffled against the floor.

She pulled him back to his feet. “No, you’re a child and I’ve been fighting for years. Like pretty much everyone else you’re going to fight. Which means that we can’t rush your training, okay? You have years before we let you into the field, if we do, so…”

He brushed himself off with a bitter expression.

“Fine. We drill basics.”

~

Riddler grinned, spinning around in his chair.

“Ladybug and Chat Noi --.” He stopped short, his eyes widening as they spotted something behind them. “What the heck? You guys brought a kid to this?”

He glanced behind himself and cringed lightly. He reached out and gently pulled Dick behind himself a little. Nygma had never been one for random attacks, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to make sure that this kid was safe.

And why had they brought him?

Marinette clicked her tongue once in annoyance. “Hey, sweetie, show the nice man your powers for a second.”

Dick brought his flute to his lips. With one high note he was gone.

Yep. They were really regretting giving him that miraculous right about then. They hadn’t even realized that he was coming along until Adrien had missed a jump and realized that his bones hadn’t audibly cracked like they usually did when he messed up like that.

He reappeared with a fox-like grin playing across his thin lips.

(Or maybe they just thought it was fox-like because he was currently dressed as a fox. Who knows.)

Riddler considered this for a minute, then nodded. “I understand now.”

Adrien sighed. “Yep.”

Marinette pulled out her yoyo and summoned a coloring book and some crayons. Dick beamed and plopped down on the floor to color.

The parents smiled fondly at their kid and then turned to Riddler.

“Now, you have news?” Adrien said.

“Good news and bad news.”

The adults looked at each other and gave tiny shrugs.

“Good news first,” said Marinette.

“Good news is that there’s only one person who supplies that specific acid.”

Adrien’s eyebrows knit together. That sounded good, but…

“Bad news is that she’s pretty popular. Over two-hundred customers popular.”

Ah. There it was.

Marinette covered Dick’s ears so she could curse.

Adrien, however, shrugged. “Do you have a list of her customers?”

Riddler nodded slowly. “Of course. I’ll forward it to you guys.”

“Thanks for the help, Nygma. See you in a few months.” With that, Marinette picked up Dick and held him to her hip.

“I’ll get you with the next one!”

“Mhmm. Sure.”

Adrien gave an apologetic smile and a friendly wave as he hurried out after his wife.

~

Marinette hummed absently as she pulled her jacket on, then froze up when she heard a gun click behind her head.

“Turn around. Slowly.”

She pulled a smile to her face and held her hands up in a kind of surrender, then turned around.

Wow. This man looked exactly like how gangsters looked in movies. She probably would have laughed if he wasn’t pointing a gun at her.

And, even with the gun pointed at her, she had to suppress a smile.

“Who are you?” He asked.

She frowned. “Shouldn’t I be asking that of you, sir? You’re the one attacking the random trapeze artist.”

“You’ve killed every single man I’ve sent in here to make sure everything was going to plan.”

“Maybe you should’ve sent a woman. We apparently get the job done better.”

“Who. Are. You?”

“Marinette Agreste, but I’m sure you knew that. Otherwise you wouldn’t know that I’ve killed ‘every single man you’ve sent here’.”

He scowled. “That wasn’t what I was asking and you know it.”

“Do I? Maybe you should be clearer,” she said. “Or, you could just tell me your name and I promise I would be much more compliant.”

The man seemed to consider this for a minute, his face tinged red with annoyance. She tried to push down the twinge of satisfaction. Even if this wasn’t Zucco, he at least had to be pretty high up and was likely the person who had ordered the goons to kill Dick’s parents. This bitch deserved all the hell she gave him, in her not-so-humble opinion.

“Giovanni,” he said carefully.

She smiled. “See? Was that so hard? Now, who am I...? I don’t know. I sometimes fight people. What else is there to say?”

He didn’t seem amused. “Why are you killing all my men?”

“I wouldn’t have to if they didn’t notice me noticing them every time. It’s getting very annoying. Send less observant people.”

Her eyes caught Kaalki’s. The kwami was hiding in a duffel bag that had been left open and she gave a tiny shrug to say go.

The man gave a scream as a portal sliced his hand off.

Marinette hummed absently and leaned down to pick up the gun. She pried the hand off of the gun and tossed it aside.

“WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK --.”

“I know, I know, it hurts, but could you be quieter?” She rubbed the side of her head. “Right, I have a few questions about Zucco.”

“He’d kill m --.”

“Yes. Yes, he would. But maybe you should concern yourself less with him, who has already made up his mind about killing you, and more about me, who’s still mulling it over.”

An hour later she stepped out of the changing room, humming as she tossed the gun back over her shoulder lazily.

“Haly?” She yelled, and smiled when his head popped out from his train care.

He looked stunned for a moment before he pulled himself together. “Yes?”

“I’m quitting. It’s been fun, though!”

She bit her lip as she strode out into the night.

Well, if she wasn’t already on Zucco’s radar she definitely would be now.

Greeeeaaaat.

~

It’s hard to look into people when you’re on the run from the mob.

They’d done everything they could think of. Marinette had withdrawn everything from their accounts, Adrien had altered all their appearances, Dick had... come along.

And it turns out tracking down 237 people is hard or something. Who knew.

You have to:

Figure out whether or not the person you’re after has pseuds. In order to do this you have to track their income patterns. This requires pretty high tech stuff, which they were generally trying to avoid because of the whole ‘mob out to get them’ thing.

Then, if they do have pseuds, you have to find all their assets. Then you have to go and check every single safehouse to see if it is, in fact, Zucco or someone working for him. It’s not fun. Most people in the mob are trained to not tell secrets no matter what, and getting to the point where you can get that information is… time consuming.

And they didn’t have time.

They glared at the remaining names. Dick was turning twelve tomorrow. They hadn’t even realized it because time was getting fuzzy again, but then they had come home to him hanging upside down from one of the lights on the ceiling and chanting about how close his birthday was.

After checking to make sure their kid hadn’t somehow gotten high or drunk, because what the heck, they had flown into a panic about how much work they still had to do.

“What’re the ethics of killing all 92 people tonight?” She asked, leaning back against her husband as he clicked through files.

“Even if we could, I’d say it’s probably frowned upon.”

She groaned and closed her eyes, then opened them again to glare at the papers in front of her. “How much you wanna bet that the very first one we choose after the kid joins us is going to be the right one?”

“Knowing our luck? That’s definitely going to happen.”

She gave a bitter laugh before pushing herself back up. “I’m going to break into a bakery to make a cake.”

“Cupcakes. You know he’s going to want to spend the day out in the field looking for answers, we might as well have food we can travel with.”

She clicked her tongue but nodded.

He fell back on the bed and glared at the list. He should have said they started at eighteen...

~

Well, at least it hadn’t been the first person that they’d looked into with Dick.

It had been the second.

After… ‘interogating’ the guy they’d found, they’d been given the name of this cruise ship and where it often docked. Then Dick had given them all cover so they could sneak on undetected.

And now night had hit. The three of them sat, perched on a railing as they observed the goons below them.

She watched Adrien send a wave before disappearing to take out the captain and destroy anything that could be used to contact land.

She turned to the kid next to her and reached out to ruffle his hair. “Ready, sweetie?”

Dick gave a slightly nervous smile before pulling out his flute.

“You’re only allowed to get involved if I’m dying, remember?”

He nodded, though she got the feeling that the kid wasn’t listening. Or, rather, he was listening and just opting not to take the words to heart.

She clicked her tongue once. Then she began walking along the outer edges of the ship, Dick trailing along behind her. She twirled her yoyo absently. They needed to get to the private quarters, as she was pretty sure that Zucco wouldn’t be anywhere else (he sent people out to do all his work, there was no way he was doing any work on his ship).

Then she heard laughter.

She looked up and scowled at the three henchmen who were leaning over the side of the railing above them.

“Oh my god, Ladybug has a kid!”

Her yoyo came to a stop. “Hilarious, I know.”

“Kinda! I mean the most deadly vigilantes in the world have a little kid trailing around like a lost puppy! That’s so good!”

She pressed her lips together tightly. “Mhmm. Please, tell me more...”

“Gonna say ‘or else’? Or else what? You’re going to change our diapers?”

She nodded slowly, then turned to Dick. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. She opted to ignore the way the three roared with laughter above her at the action, instead concentrating on him.

“Sweetie, I want you to cover your eyes for a second, please. I’ll tell you when you can look again, okay?”

He nodded and brought his hands to his eyes.

She wheeled on the criminals, whose laughter was quickly dying.

“Oops,” said one of them, his voice so quiet she’d barely heard it.

But she did. And she fought off some laughter of her own. “‘Oops’ is right.”

Three minutes later, she smiled and pulled Dick’s hands away from his eyes.

“Hey, sweetie, how’re you feeling?”

He glanced behind her and she winced, expecting him to become horrified, but then he suddenly tossed his flute.

There was a satisfying ‘thunk’ as it made contact with the guy’s head and he fell over the side.

Marinette looked at Dick and gave him a tiny smile. He beamed in return.

“Thanks for the save.”

“No problem.”

She tossed her yoyo and recovered his flute for him, then took his hand. She led her kid through the ship.

~

When he caught up with them, Adrien smiled and rested a hand over the top of the kid’s head. “I found out where the private quarters are.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Follow me.”

The three of them went along in silence. Whenever they passed someone they’d casually knock them over the side. They might live that way.

But probably not.

Still, it was relatively easy.

They walked along the private quarters, poking their head in doors and then closing them.

Eventually, they came to the most grandiose-looking cabin. Really, they should have checked it first, but whatever. Marinette, Adrien, and Dick all gave each other wary looks before Adrien kicked the door open.

The poor guy had been asleep. Sucks.

Zucco looked up slowly and then gasped, reaching under his pillow and pulling out a gun.

Ah. Now that sucks for them.

Dick gave a high-pitched whine.

Marinette and Adrien instantly reached for Dick to push him behind them, only to stop short when their hands passed through clean air. They turned to look, confused expressions on their faces, only to find that the kid was gone.

Uh…

They frowned slightly and looked around. Their faces drained of color when they found their way back to where Zucco was.

Or, rather, had been. Because he was missing, too.

Marinette cursed beside him and Adrien felt like punching a wall. Dick hadn’t been making that noise because he was scared, he’d been making that noise because he’d been creating an illusion.

They had to stop Dick before he did something he would regret.

Their eyes searched the room desperately, their ears strained. There had to be something off. Dick and Zucco hadn’t left, Marinette and Adrien were covering too much of the door for both of them to squeeze past without the illusion breaking, so they were still in the cabin.

Marinette pursed her lips tightly and pulled the door shut, then lopped off the doorknob with her yoyo.

Adrien nodded and they began to shuffle through the room.

It was needlessly huge, but there was a lot of stuff in it. A bed, a mostly untouched kitchen area, a bathroom with a jacuzzi, a possibly real treasure chest, a vanity…

He knocked his staff against things absently. It should reveal illusions…

Where was this kid?

He kicked some jewelry on the floor in irritation and then blinked when they hit the wall nearby without a sound.

Wait a minute…

He swung his staff in a large circle around him and couldn’t help but wince when he hit something that he couldn’t see. The illusion shattered and Dick groaned in pain as he stumbled off of Zucco, holding his side where Adrien had hit him.

But, for once, Adrien wasn’t looking at the kid. His eyes found their way to the floor, where Zucco had curled up. He was beaten and bloody, bruises starting to form on his pale skin.

“Robin…” He whispered, looking at Dick.

Dick was crying, the blunt end of his flute bloodied.

Adrien walked over and carefully pulled the flute from his hands and then drew him into his chest. “You can’t kill him.”

“But --!”

“No buts.” Marinette gave Zucco a kick to the head to make sure he was down before joining the hug.

“But you kill people!”

“And we’re also adults. When you’re an adult you can kill people, too.”

“M’lady…”

She winced a little. “Yeah, I hear it. But… anyways, sweetie, we can’t let a kid kill anyone. Killing… it messes with you. We don’t want that life for you.”

Adrien sighed. “You’re a kid. You can’t kill someone, it’s not good for your psyche. Leave that kind of thing to us.”

Dick took a shaky breath, and then nodded.

They’d been right to not want to include him in this. Vigilantism wasn’t healthy for kids.

And they especially shouldn’t have brought Dick along for this part, they should have expected that something like this would happen. He was too close to the case.

He swallowed thickly and hugged him closer.

Marinette pulled away carefully. She hummed, grabbing Zucco by the back of his nightshirt and dragging him away.

He gently rubbed circle’s into the kid’s back. “You want some ice cream? I think there’s still some at home…”

Dick giggled a little. “That ice cream is so expired.”

“You don’t know that!”

“It’s been, like, three years.”

Adrien sighed. “Okay, maybe, but hush.”

He pulled away slightly from the kid and wiped some stray tears from his cheeks.

“Want to go home anyways?”

Dick smiled faintly and nodded.

~

She dropped back on the bed and smiled as she curled in the blankets. The night had been… interesting… but at least she was home now.

She felt tiny hands wrap around her and her smile widened as she felt a face bury itself in her stomach.

But then her smile lessened. She slowly combed her fingers through the kid’s hair.

“I need your miraculous back, sweetie.”

“No. I want to keep doing it.”

She gave Adrien a pleading look and he sighed, slipping into bed and wrapping his arms around them. “She’s right. We don’t want —.”

“And what about what I want?”

It definitely wasn’t an angle they’d considered. They’d been very concerned about the kid ending up like them (they had given up on trying to fix themselves a long time ago, but they were still self aware of the fact that they didn’t cope healthily). But… what if they were too late? The kid had already been exhibiting signs of their bad coping mechanisms, had been since the start, had they accidentally encouraged it just by being around him?

She didn’t know.

What she did know, though, was that they’d messed up by letting him come along. He’d had a taste of the adrenaline, and there was no going back.

She flinched. “I… are you sure?”

Dick nodded against her stomach. “I want to help people.”

She bit her lip. Dick was one of those kids that would sneak out and do it anyways, the least they could do was make sure he was safe.

Adrien seemed to come to the same conclusion, because he sighed again and squeezed them both tighter.

“As long as you make sure to always be with one of us while you’re doing vigilante work…” he said reluctantly.

“I can do that.”

Oh, thank kwami. 

She smiled and ruffled his hair. “I guess it would be kind of cool to have a whole family of vigilantes...”


	3. Jason Todd

Marinette took one long, deep breath.

“What the fuck, Adrien?”

Adrien gave an awkward smile that made her want to forgive him… but, no, she must stay strong.

“It’s a cool car!”

She clicked her tongue. “Yes. Yes it is. But none of us can drive.”

“We have to learn at some point, though. Dick is going to uni soon, and it’s not like we can homeschool him for that. And there is no way I’m going to let him take the bus.”

Marinette winced. Okay, fair point.

Adrien must have realized that he was convincing her, because he chose that moment to bring out the pout.

Kwami…

She clicked her tongue once to show she was still irritated but nodded that he could have it.

He grinned and turned to look over his shoulder. “Told you I could convince her.”

Dick popped out of the bushes with a whoop.

Betrayal.

~

“WHY THE HECK DID I GET THE FAST CAR --?!”

“WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ASKING ME --?!”

“STOP YELLING AT EACH OTHER AND WATCH THE ROAD --!”

“PULL OVER IT’S MY TURN TO LEARN TO DRIVE --!”

“WE’RE GONNA DIE WE’RE GONNA DIE WE’RE GONNA DIE --!”

~

Marinette glared at the three new driver’s licenses they had all somehow scammed their way into getting, then turned her gaze on Dick.

“I love you but if you flunk out first semester I will stab you.”

He smiled and wrapped his mom in a hug. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“Bitch, try me.”

Dick wasn’t fazed, squeezing her tighter.

She huffed and reluctantly hugged back. “Okay, fine, maybe not, but I will not be happy.”

“I love youuuuuu.”

“Love you too, sweetie.”

~

Adrien sighed as he looked at his kid’s grades so far. He’d been scared of this. College was a lot of adjustments already, and to add to that he was going straight from homeschool to normal classes and the school wasn’t giving him nearly as much help as it should.

Dick was stealing anxious looks at him out of the corner of his eyes, his legs drawn to his chest on the couch.

Adrien reached out and ruffled his hair gently. “It’s fine. We’ll get you a tutor, okay?”

He didn’t suggest changing majors. Dick wouldn’t do it if he did, though he wished he would. It’s law school. Everyone knows that you can’t have a life and still go to law school, jobs and stuff are supposed to be put on hold when you go and there was no way Dick was going to stop vigilantism anytime soon. But…

“Also, try playing a game on your computer or doodling while you’re listening to the lecture. That might help you stay focused.”

Dick nodded with a tired smile.

“And you’re going to have to cut down on vigilantism so you can do homework and go to classes. You don’t get to choose your own schedule anymore.”

“Nooooooo…”

~

Marinette yawned, rubbing her eyes. It had been a long day for her. She’d done patrols for a good fourteen hours, and then Nygma had decided to use that exact moment to pull a death trap out of nowhere.

So, when she’d finally finished everything for the day she was tired and soaking wet (because, for some reason, he thought it would be cool to see if she preferred death by electrocution or drowning). She’d called for her husband to come get her because it was winter and she wasn’t all that interested in walking through the snow in damp clothes.

Now she curled up in the car, getting the front seat and both her and Adrien’s jackets wet. She didn’t care as she pressed as close to the heater as she possibly could.

Adrien brought the car to a stop and looked over, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Do you want to wait in the car while I get him?”

She nodded, closing her eyes.

She felt a set of keys drop in her lap and pressed the lock button, sinking into the chair.

And then, a few minutes later, she heard something outside.

She peeked an eye open blearily and looked around, expecting to see Adrien and Dick drumming their fingers on the windows to be let in. A frown made its way across her face when she realized that they weren’t there.

She sat back up slowly and her eyes landed on a flash of red on the side opposite her.

She unlocked her door and poked her head out, carefully making her way around the car to investigate…

A person was trying to steal their hubcap.

She groaned softly and rubbed her eyes, then got into a fighting position.

The person looked up at the sound and she winced mentally when she saw they had a crowbar.

They shot to their feet and raised the weapon.

“Marinette?” Called Adrien.

She looked up on instinct, a bad idea when you’re fighting someone.

She took a crowbar to the stomach and groaned, doubling over. They leaned down to grab the hubcap and then attempted to make a break for it.

It didn’t work, obviously. Dick caught the person by their hoodie when they tried to rush past him.

They twisted in his grip and hit Dick in the side with their hubcap and, when he stumbled a bit in surprise, swept his legs out from under him.

Adrien scowled as he tackled the person to the ground. Then he stopped suddenly, his eyes going wide. “This is --!”

He never got to say what the person was, though, because they had socked him. The person had been wearing a lot of rings, so that hurt even more than it usually would. It was a wonder that Adrien didn’t black out or, at the very least, fall back to cradle his jaw.

The person must have been counting on this because they cursed and reached out to shove Adrien off of themself, but he caught their arms.

With a bit of awkward shuffling he had managed to pin them to the ground, arms tucked beneath him and legs swinging wildly in an attempt to keep Dick and Marinette back.

He needn’t have worried, both of them were pretty incapacitated. Getting hit with a metal instrument tends to do that to people.

Dick recovered first because his blow had been softer and to a less vulnerable part, and he crawled over to Marinette… who was currently listing off every swear that she could think of from her spot on the ground.

They leaned against each other for support and then lifted their shirts a little bit to check for blood. Thankfully, the things the person had used were blunt, so they would only have to worry about bruising...

Still hurt, though.

“— fucking asshole of a person I will fucking stab their cul stupide —!”

“Mari, stop cursing, it’s a kid,” hissed Adrien, who was now covering the kid in question’s ears.

“Oh really? Let’s see you get hit by a goddamn whatever-the-fuck-that’s-called --!”

The kid, who could apparently still hear despite her husband’s best efforts, supplied the name of the object he’d used: “Crowbar.”

“Oh, you absolute --!”

Dick covered her mouth so she could curse without the kid hearing it too clearly.

Eventually, she ran out of curses. Her shoulders slumped.

Adrien and Dick nodded to each other and removed their hands.

Adrien carefully clambered off the kid, though he made sure to hold onto their hands to make sure they wouldn’t a) attack again or b) just run off.

They looked him over and Marinette cringed. Definitely a street kid, if the ragged clothes and bruised skin was any indication.

“It wasn’t personal,” the kid said, looking between the three of them anxiously. He must have realized he wasn’t getting away, because he had stopped subtly struggling against Adrien’s grip. “I just needed money.”

Marinette nodded. “Sure. What foster or adoption system are you in? We can up donations.”

(She was still annoyed about the whole ‘hitting her with a crowbar’ thing, obviously, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to help out a bunch of kids in need.)

The kid’s eyes widened and then he gave a bitter laugh. “I’m not really in one, it’s safer on the streets.”

Adrien frowned. “Sorry? Why? Don’t you want a roof and food?”

They rolled their eyes. “Sure, I’d love that, but it doesn’t exactly happen.”

The three frowned at each other.

Adrien thought for a minute, then shrugged. “How about you stay with us?”

“Huh?” Said both Marinette and the kid.

“We have room and money, and Dick is probably going to leave soon anyways because of college. Why not stay with us?”

Dick hesitated. “I’m probably not leaving, actually, but you can stay if you want.”

Marinette and the kid looked met each other’s eyes and deemed themselves the only sane ones present, because honestly what the fuck?

But then the kid’s eyes strayed to the pearl necklace Adrien had gotten her the year before, to the car, to the designer bag Dick was carrying…

“I wouldn’t mind. What about you, mom?” He said, giving Marinette a cheeky grin.

She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t get puppy-dog-eyed from all sides.

Could Adrien, just once, ask her before randomly adopting kids?

Well, she guessed she should just be glad he didn’t try and adopt the entire foster system. She should probably say yes before he actually tried...

“Fine. Fine. We’ll adopt another one.” She pursed her lips together and then gave her husband a pointed look. “No more after this, though, got it? We’re too old for this stuff.”

“We’re not that old!” Complained Adrien.

She clicked her tongue.

“Fine. I’m not that old.”

Marinette scoffed and threw the keys at him. He caught them without even blinking.

Dick smiled and opened the car door for the kid, who seemed more than a little hesitant to get in the car with strangers. Apparently curiosity won over self-preservation, though, because the kid did end up getting in the car.

“Right, what’s your name?”

“Jason…”

“Cool! I’m Dick, and these are my adoptive parents, Marinette and Adrien.”

“... is no one going to talk about why your mom is soaking wet?”

“Why our mom is soaking wet, you mean.”

Jason frowned. “Sure… why?”

“She fell in a well.”

Adrien nodded as he started to drive. Marinette groaned and sunk into the front seat again.

Jason, poor kid, just looked confused.

“How the fuck…?”

~

Adrien was well aware that Jason didn’t trust them.

Fair enough. How many other people see a random kid stealing their hubcaps and then say ‘yeah, screw it, I’ll adopt them’? He figured they must be the only ones.

The kid seemed genuinely surprised when they pulled up to their house. Adrien wasn’t sure he wanted to know where Jason thought they were taking him.

Marinette had taken a quick shower, changed into some warm clothes, grabbed a cup of coffee, and then took Jason out shopping. Dick rearranged his room to accommodate another person.

And Adrien…

Adrien glared down the kwamis.

“Alrighty. We made the mistake last time of not telling you not to show yourselves to Dick, because we thought that was implied. We’re not doing that again. You are not allowed to in any way help Jason find out that you exist or that we are Chat Noir, Ladybug, and Robin. Got it?”

He made sure to see every kwami nod that they understood and then gave them some leftover macaroons to eat.

Good. So that disaster would be averted.

He heard a loud “Oh! My word!” from the next room and sighed.

New disaster.

He ushered the kwamis back under the floorboards and then rushed over to Dick’s room.

He walked in to find him frantically scraping a part of the wall that had been previously hidden by his bed.

Adrien crossed his arms. “Hey, buddy, whatcha got there?”

Dick turned around slowly, eyes wide and full of panic. “Uh…” He leaned back as casually as he could (it did not look like a comfortable position at all but that’s not the point here) and flashed a brilliant smile. “Adrien… Dad… Dadrien... have I ever told you how much I love you?”

“Not nearly enough. What did you do?”

“I…” He looked away. “... should probably get ahead of this. Don’t get mad, please?”

“We’ll see.”

Dick slowly scooted away from the spot and Adrien sighed deeply.

Because on the wall, in crayon, was a bunch of doodles.

But, upon closer inspection, he realized they were doodles of Chat Noir and Ladybug and a tiny little person with black hair.

Do not think it’s cute do not think it’s cute do not think it’s cute --.

He took a few deep breaths before turning to Dick. “Go get some cleaning stuff. We have a few hours before Mari gets back.”

He mumbled a thanks and then rushed out to go find cleaning supplies.

Adrien snapped a photo while he was gone.

~

Marinette and Jason were struggling.

It was hard to get this kid to buy anything at all, she had tried to get him just another hoodie and he had taken one look at the price tag before flinging it as far away from him as he possibly could.

Man, how was she supposed to get him a mattress if this was how he was going to react to a bunch of ten dollar hoodies?

She would have thrown her hands up in frustration if that wouldn’t have disturbed her coffee. “Fine. We won’t buy anything. Do you have anything we can bring?”

Jason hesitated, then shook his head.

Okay, an obvious lie but she wasn’t going to call him out on it. He was probably still wary of them and their kindness and wanted to keep that backup open. She understood.

Well, she didn’t understand because she’d never been in that kind of situation, but she would respect it.

“Fine. You’ll have to live with hand-me-downs. Are you alright with that?”

Jason relaxed a little, nodding.

She gave a tired smile.

She’d have to do something about Dick’s sleeping arrangements, she’d probably create a hammock or just let him sleep in their bed (it hardly ever got any use, anyways) for the time being. Eventually, Jason might warm up to them enough to let her buy him stuff, and she’d wait for that…

Or he’d run away. But, hopefully not that.

Jason ducked his head and pulled his hoodie up to hide his face and Marinette glanced around. People were staring at them. Fair enough, she doubted that the scruffy hoodie and weathered jeans were making people trust the kid. Still, she stepped towards him and gently grabbed the sleeve of his hoodie to say he was hers.

He cringed almost imperceptibly at her touch. She frowned a little bit, she knew all too well what that meant, but didn’t say anything.

She opted to just glare at the people giving them odd looks, daring any of them to say anything.

They didn’t. Good.

She looked down at the kid and tipped her head to the side.

“I’m going to just shop for the family and you can eat that stuff, okay?”

Jason still looked like he wasn’t happy with it but he nodded.

And, so, she took him to the grocery part of the store. She did what she said she would, shopping for things they would need over the week, but she also watched Jason carefully to see if he liked anything.

The kid clearly knew what she was doing, because he spent most of his time watching her with a neutral expression, but occasionally she’d catch his gaze lingering on a specific product for just a second too long and she’d drop it into the cart.

He couldn’t say anything. He had no proof that they never ate… whatever the hell a Chef Boyardee was.

She found he was mostly looking at cheap, instant meals but that was okay. He’d learn.

She was a baker’s daughter, after all. Everyone in her house would learn what good food was eventually or die by her hand.

~

Adrien fell back on the couch and groaned. “I have to homeschool another kid!”

“Sucks,” said Dick, who was applying a princess bandaid to a shallow cut on his cheek that he’d gotten that night (the goon who had missed had been pissed that their aim was off... but then pissed themself when the two older vigilantes advancing on him made him realize he had bigger problems).

“It does! I get one kid into college and then I suddenly get another kid to teach!”

Marinette sat on his stomach and he wheezed a little. She didn’t pay this any mind, though. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you adopted another one.”

“He said he felt safer on the streets than in a home! I couldn’t just not adopt him!”

She gave a noncommittal hum.

“Dick! Agree with me!”

The person in question just turned on the TV and started flipping through channels.

Adrien sighed. He was now talking to what may as well have been an empty room. He looked around for the kwamis but they were very determinedly avoiding eye contact while chowing down on their foods of choice. Still, he at least had one person-god-whatever that had to listen to him:

“Plagg.”

The cat kwami gave a long sigh before looking at him. “Adrien, please don’t make me give you my opinion on this. You’re not going to like it.”

He pouted. “Honestly, though, it’s messed up. Is the system really that bad?”

“Yep,” said Marinette.

“Mhmm,” said Dick.

“And aren’t either of you, I don’t know, concerned about it?”

“You guys already donate a bunch of money, what else can you do?”

Adrien frowned, reaching out and pulling his wife down to lay next to him so they both could be comfortable.

Marinette lifted her arms slightly so he could wrap his arms around her and nuzzled into him a little bit (Dick made a gagging noise in the background). “This isn’t really our type of thing, Chaton.”

He nodded reluctantly…

And then gasped.

“But what if it is!”

“What?” She said warily.

“I mean, we’re in Gotham. Everything is connected to crime here! What if the foster and adoption systems are messed up because the mob or something has something to do with it!”

“Did you stretch before that reach?” Asked Dick as he changed the channel.

Adrien huffed. “M’lady, c’mon, I make sense, right?”

She thought for a minute, and then closed her eyes. “Alright, Chaton, if you really want you can go investigate it. If it’s our kind of thing, then we fix it. Okay?”

He beamed.

~

Marinette was… tired.

So, when she walked into the kitchen and found Jason flinging cabinets open at random and Dick swinging from a ceiling light, she just continued on to the coffee machine.

“WHERE THE FUCK IS THE TRASHCAN?!”

“Language,” Dick murmured absently. He hooked his legs over the light fixture and lowered himself down to open the cabinet beside Marinette, revealing... the trash can.

Jason stared at the cabinet in shock. “But… I opened that one… I know I did…”

“You have to be upside down to access it,” said Dick seriously.

She started up the machine. “Sweetie, don’t tell him that. He’ll break his neck.”

Jason slowly discarded his plate in the trash can, eyes locked on it as if it would disappear if he didn’t keep it in his sight at all times. “Why don’t you just have the trash can out…?”

Dick grinned. “Rich people thing. Can’t let people know you live here.”

“What?”

All he got was two shrugs. They didn’t really understand it either, they just didn’t care enough to do anything about it.

“I hate rich people,” Jason decided eventually.

“Same.”

“Including you.”

“Same.”

Adrien had chosen that exact minute to walk in and was now looking on in horror as Marinette brought an entire coffee pot to her lips and Jason dragged the trash can out into a reasonable place and Dick attempted a trapeze act on the ceiling light.

“I…”

“Morning,” said Marinette, sending a wave.

Adrien looked at the three of them for a few moments before sighing and sitting on the counter.

“Morning.”

~

Listen, if nothing else, Adrien had faith (... in humanity, religious faith is kinda weird when you have a god living in your jewelry).

This faith had never done him any good but it was there.

So, he had to hope that the problems with the system were things that he could fix as Chat Noir. Otherwise, he’d have to just accept the fact that the system didn’t care about its kids. He couldn’t do that.

The world was evil... but surely it couldn’t be that evil.

Unfortunately for his dreams of fixing everything, he found out that he needed to go to university for at least four years in order to get in. He couldn’t wait that long! People were suffering now!

Good thing he was rich.

Listen, Gotham is messed up. He’s been doing his best to fix it but, dang it, if everyone else can exploit it then he can, too!

(But only to help people. His moral compass was a roulette wheel and using his money to benefit solely himself was one of the lines he wouldn’t cross.)

Dick gave him a jealous look as he held up his new, definitely legitimately earned degree.

And then Jason had stepped into the room and frowned confusedly.

“You’re a social worker?”

“Am now!” He chirped.

“New?”

“Yep! I’m hoping to make it better, if I can.”

Jason gave a tiny laugh. “Oh, so you’re NEW new.”

Well, that wasn’t encouraging.

That night, he managed to catch Marinette before she could head off for patrols. “Do you think what I’m doing is useless?”

“A little bit but…” She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I knew what I was getting into when I married you. I love you, Chaton.”

He frowned a little bit but returned the kiss and whispered his “I love you, too, M’lady.”

“Would you like me to drive you to work?”

He smiled and let her lead him along. That would be good. If he was driven to work then he could get someone to pick him up ‘late’ and give him time to snoop around.

Well, not today. The staff would know if it was his first day. He’d have to give it a month or so before he snooped. But it was good to start that kind of routine early.

When they pulled up to the orphanage, Marinette locked the doors before he could get out.

Crap.

He gave his wife a careful smile. “M’lady?”

“Listen to me: you are not allowed to adopt any of the kids.”

“But --.”

“Nope. No kids. We already have two when we said we were going to have zero. It has to stop.”

He sighed, leaning back in his seat. “What if… what if they’re about to age out?”

Marinette paused. He could see the gears turning in her head as she bit her lip, considering it.

Then she shook her head. “If they’re about to age out you can give them money and support to start out. That’s. All.”

He pouted a little but accepted this answer. It would have to do.

He heard the doors unlock and stepped out. He looked up at the building and suppressed a cringe. It looked like the kind of orphanage that you see in movies that always have an evil director. This was a good thing for him as Chat Noir but a bad thing when you consider that there are actual kids living there.

Adrien stepped inside, all too aware of his nerves.

After all, he was technically unprepared. Did he know basic medicine? Was he good with kids? Did he know how to teach even kids with challenges? Yes to all of that. Still, he couldn’t help but worry that maybe the four years of college that were asked of him could have taught him something that he would need.

Relax, he told himself.

This did nothing, and really only served to make him more anxious, but hush.

He was given the day to tour the place, and he was originally disappointed. Surely, this couldn’t be it. All the beds were crammed in one room! Some of the beds didn’t even have fitted sheets!

But then his mind wandered to Jason. They never found him asleep in any of the beds, instead finding him passed out with a thin blanket in the corner or, at best, in an armchair. He hardly ever slept alone, either, usually opting to choose whatever room had two or more people in it to sleep.

He had to remind himself that these kids were likely on the streets for at least a few months of their lives, and likely would have adapted to that.

It didn’t make him feel any better, though.

Adrien didn't let any of this show on his face, instead smiling as he introduced himself to the kids he passed. A few gave wary looks, others gave awkward smiles, and some didn’t even seem to notice him.

He didn’t know what he was expecting. He was their new teacher, people usually aren’t all that eager to meet those.

He hoped he could help, though.

~

Marinette clicked her tongue when she found Jason reading in his current favorite hiding space: under Dick’s bed.

“Sweetie, you’re going to get squished under there.”

He didn’t answer, probably because there was a flashlight in his mouth.

She leaned down to see if she could figure out a way that he could stay down there without getting hurt and scrunched up her nose at a smell.

“Is there… are you keeping food down there?”

Jason finally looked at her, his eyes wide. He quickly moved in front of the stash so she couldn’t get to it and pulled the flashlight from his mouth to speak: “It’s mine.”

“It’s spoiled,” she said, shaking her head. “You can hoard food if that makes you happy but at least make sure it’s something that won’t go bad, please. How about cereal -- no, actually, the kid would kill me if I gave you that… what about nutrition bars?”

“Those aren’t actually that healthy, you know.”

She gave a tiny shrug. “You’re right, they’re not, but they don’t spoil quickly and they have at least some kind of nutritional value.”

He hesitated, then reluctantly pushed the stash of food in her direction. She sifted through it to pull out any food that was still good, and then handed that over.

He looked at the tinier pile and then gave her a tiny smile.

“Thank you.”

She nodded. “I’ll go out and get some nutrition bars.”

His eyes widened. “You don’t have --.”

“Don’t worry about it. I was already going to start buying them to try and wean your brother off of cereal. This is just an added bonus,” she lied so he wouldn’t feel guilty about using her money.

He looked reluctant but still nodded.

She beamed and stood again, the spoiled food in her arms.

She yelled to Dick that Jason was under his bed again so he needed to be careful, then put a sticky note on his bed and door so he’d remember, then tossed the food.

And then she started towards the store.

~

Teaching all day and then coming home to teach another kid was… something.

Good thing Adrien had the patience of a saint from years of schooling Dick.

Jason groaned and fell back on the couch, covering his face with the textbook. “This is soooooo boring. I already know this stuff!”

“The test you took says differently,” said Adrien as he closed his copy.

All he got was another groan.

He sighed and closed his eyes. Whatever. He was exhausted. He’d take the night off. “Alright, fine, you’re bored. What do you want to do?”

Jason lifted the book from his face so he could send his dad a confused look.

“You have to enjoy something. Y’know, a hobby or something?”

Jason’s face reddened a little and he nodded, toying with some of the rings on his fingers. “I have one... but you can’t laugh if I tell you.”

“I wouldn’t.”

He mumbled something that she couldn’t make out, and Adrien frowned. “Sorry?”

He took a deep breath and then whispered his answer: “Iliketoread.”

It took a moment for his brain to catch up, and then he felt a wide smile stretch across his face. A kid? That reads?

He pushed himself up to his feet.

“I have a library card that’s been gathering dust for the past few years. C’mon.”

Jason raised his eyebrows. “It’s been gathering dust? Why?”

“Uh… let’s just say I’ve been kind of busy with other things.”

“That sucks.”

He considered this, his head tipping to the side, then he nodded. “It does. I should read more.”

“You should.”

Adrien laughed a little. “Have any suggestions?”

Jason’s eyes lit up.

~

Marinette hummed absently as she stepped into the kitchen and then frowned as her eyes flicked between Dick and Jason, who were looking very intensely at a plate.

She stepped closer and rolled her eyes. It seemed they were dividing up the last cookie from her baking session last night.

Was she concerned that they had managed to eat all the cookies in the few hours since she had finished them? A little. But not that concerned. At least she knew they were getting calories.

But now she was just amused. Because they were using a ruler and a pencil and paper to figure out what exactly half was.

Dick seemed to finish his math first, because he picked up a knife and positioned it over the cookie.

“Careful!” Said Jason.

Marinette snickered. “Boys, I may have a solution for you.”

They looked up with confused expressions.

“I can… you know I can just make more, right?”

Jason looked like he was going to protest... but then Dick swiped the cookie and stuffed it into his mouth. He watched on in horror for a few moments before his face hardened.

“You live up to your name, Dickwad.”

Dick gasped. “Rude!”

“Oh, so I’m rude? You want to know what’s actually rude? It’s --.”

Marinette grinned as she sipped at her coffee. She’d intervene if things went too far but, for the time being, she was perfectly fine just watching.

Jason’s eyes found her and he brought a cheeky grin to his face. “Hey, mom, if you’re going to make cookies then Dickwad can’t have any, right?”

“What? No! Mari -- Mom -- Mominette!”

“Mom!”

“Mom!”

She tried not to laugh at the chorus of ‘Mom’s as she started pulling down ingredients.

~

After a month and a half of gaining the trust of the orphanage staff and kids, he managed to sneak into the director’s room and look through the financial records.

He snapped pictures of every page and then slipped out through the window.

When he got home he pulled the pictures up on a bigger monitor and started looking over them with Dick and Marinette at his side.

The longer he looked the more he frowned.

“It’s not an evil plot. I don’t know what to do when it’s not an evil plot,” he said eventually.

Marinette rested her head on his shoulder. “Of course it’s not. Even if criminals benefit from the system being broken, they don’t need to do anything to keep it that way. Even good cities have terrible adoption and foster systems.”

“There has to be something we can do!”

She and Dick exchanged exhausted looks.

“There has to be something we can do.” He repeated, frowning. “We’re rich!”

“We don’t have enough to beat out a mob boss in political donations, Chaton, much less a bunch of them.”

He sighed.

Marinette slipped her hand into his and was silent for a while, trying to think of a way to cheer him up. She squeezed a little tighter and he looked over with a raised eyebrow.

“Hey, speaking of mob bosses, the kid and I have been closing in on one’s location. You want in? You always like beating them up...”

“I guess it has been a while since we’ve done that…”

They had been about two seconds away from just pushing the emotions down like they usually did, but then Dick had gasped and pushed himself to his feet.

“We can’t fix homes, but we can always make things easier when they leave.”

“We already agreed to give them money when they age out, sweetie.”

“Nonononono not like that!” Dick was pacing, now. “You guys know a lot of people, right?”

“I do…” said Adrien carefully.

“Then use that! Help them get into the fields they want to get into.”

“That’s…” Adrien pulled out his phone to translate the word to English. “... nepotism.”

Marinette shrugged absently. “We kill people, Chaton, this is hardly the place to draw the line. I can probably get them into the designing world if I wanted.”

“I could do circuses or law.”

Adrien sighed and closed his eyes. He figured he should just be glad that they were trying to help.

“... I can get modelling and any other field that I know someone in… I’d need to make some calls...”

~

The happiness that came along with finding a solution, weak as it was, lasted about a month.

Marinette smiled and wiped some blood from her husband’s cheek so she could give him a kiss.

“Feel better?”

“A little,” he admitted.

She smiled and tipped her head back to look at Dick, who was tying up the last of the henchmen. “You’ve had faster times, sweetie.”

“I would’ve gone faster if you were helping instead of ‘french kissing’ over here.”

“We weren’t --!” She clicked her tongue when both of the guys started laughing. “You’re hilarious. C’mon, we need to get out before the cops get here.”

They slipped out into the streets as sirens blared in the distance and detransformed.

Marinette hummed lightly as they made their way through back alleys. After all, their detransformations only got rid of the suits, not the blood… it would look a little weird if three people covered in blood were just walking through the streets.

Adrien opened the door for them, and she stepped inside…

Only to go pale.

Because Jason was up, watching a show. He had probably woken up and decided to wait until people were back to sleep. The three vigilantes went completely still, save for the quiet squeak of surprise that left Dick’s lips.

Jason looked over and his eyes widened.

“Uh… we can explain?” Said Marinette.

He screamed and scrambled off the couch as quickly as possible and made a mad dash for the kitchen.

The three vigilantes looked at each other, then followed after him.

Her eyes searched the kitchen and found him hidden under a table...

Oh. He had a knife. Fun.

Adrien pushed Dick behind them.

She held up her hands placatingly. “Sweetie…”

“NO! WHAT THE FUCK?! NO! I KNEW YOU GUYS WERE TOO NICE TO BE TRUE BUT WHAT?! THE FUCK?! MURDERERS?! COME ON!”

Adrien sighed. “I… we aren’t… well… we kind of are… but...”

“Not helping,” Dick muttered.

Marinette bit her lip as she considered what to do to make Jason relax, then groaned. “Tikki. Spots on.”

Somehow, Jason’s eyes went wider when she transformed.

“WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK?! YOU GUYS ARE VIGILANTES?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”

Adrien sighed.

The other two transformed as well.

Jason had gone into shock…

Progress?

They detransformed now that they had shown him the truth.

“Now that you know that we won’t hurt you, can you… put the knife down? Please? That’s the good knife and --?” She felt the glares of the other two vigilantes on the back of her head and winced. “Okay, maybe not the most important reason why... knives are sharp. We don’t like sharp things. They hurt.”

The kid did, in fact, put down the knife. This was probably just because he was stunned and on autopilot but at least he was no longer armed.

Marinette carefully walked over and picked it up off the ground. A pout made its way onto her face as she looked at the blade. It had scratches on it…

She saw Adrien’s disapproving look and huffed, tossing it into the sink a few feet away and then turning to the kid next to her.

“This wasn’t how we wanted you to find out…”

The boys made their way over as well and they all sat in a wide circle around the kid. They didn’t want him to feel alone but they also didn’t want to crowd him.

“We didn’t really want you to know at all, we just wanted to be a stable family for you,” explained Adrien.

Jason was emerging from his shock slowly, his breathing was picking up.

Marinette peeled her jacket off and draped it over his shoulders gently.

“We promise we won't force you to be a vigilante. In fact, we’d probably feel better if you weren’t one. You’re a kid,” said Adrien.

“But,” added Dick. His parents glared at him but he continued anyways: “If you want, then we won’t stop you. You’re old enough by our family standards, so we can’t really stop you if you want to. Just tell us and we’ll get you a miraculous that suits you and some training.”

She clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

Dick gave her a bit of side-eye. “What? It’s not like we would be able to stop him if he wanted to be a vigilante. I’d prefer that he at least be safe… -ish.”

Jason curled up in the jacket and closed his eyes. “Can I have some time to think about it? About… everything?”

“Of course, sweetie.” Marinette scooted away a little so he could get past her and he rushed out.

The three watched him go in silence. They heard the front door slam behind him.

She closed her eyes. “Sweetie, go after him? Make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”

Dick gave a quiet “Okay” and transformed. With a shrill note, he was gone.

Adrien and Marinette were left alone.

She felt him crawl over to her and pull her into him.

“He’ll be okay,” said Adrien softly.

She bit her lip and then buried her face in his shoulder.

~

Over the next few weeks they heard people in the house.

He made sure to never acknowledge it. It could be Dick coming back for food or to grab some homework to do while watching over his brother, or it could be Jason.

He always hoped it would be Jason… but now that it actually was he felt a surge of anxiety.

Firstly, Marinette wasn’t home. Nygma had just announced his most recent death trap to the city and she’d had to rush out to deal with it.

Secondly, Dick had a class at the moment.

Thirdly, Adrien was just really tired. He’d spent the entire day teaching, of course he was tired. He wouldn’t be at the top of his game.

This was probably an intentional move on Jason’s part. It was a good idea to take precautions, Adrien would have been proud if he wasn’t so nervous.

He looked up from his spot on the couch and gave a careful smile. “Hey, Jay.”

Jason hesitated and then disappeared to the kitchen. He came back with a knife.

Ah. Great.

Adrien knew he could beat a child with a knife, that didn’t mean he wanted to.

Jason sat on the couch opposite Adrien and pointed his knife at him. “I want to ask some questions.”

“Of course. Anything.”

He nodded and lowered his knife ever so slightly. “Okay… why did you adopt me?”

Adrien frowned a little bit. “You were a kid that was so desperate for money that you were stealing a bunch of rich people’s hubcaps. I couldn’t not adopt you.”

“There’s a lot of people like that. Why me? I attacked you. There had to be better, safer options.”

“I…” His frown deepened. This was true. Why had he felt so drawn to Jason in particular? “I guess it could have been Marinette’s luck? One of her side-effects is that she has really good luck. I wouldn’t be surprised if we adopted the exact kid that was perfect for our family.”

Jason nodded a little bit, though he looked skeptical.

Fair enough. Adrien was also a little skeptical of his answer. He had a theory about what was going on but it wasn’t like he’d ever be able to prove it.

“Next question: what did Dick mean when he said that I was old enough to be a vigilante ‘by your standards’?”

Adrien winced a little bit. “You said you’re about thirteen, right? Well, Dick and I started at twelve and Mari started at thirteen.”

Jason gave him an incredulous look, then apparently got over it. “Oh. Okay. And… why did you start doing this?”

“Uh… odd question…” He pursed his lips. “It’s hard to explain. I… had an image to keep up and Chat Noir was -- still is, actually -- my outlet for me to be myself in public. Mari, I think, was more or less thrown into the life and then, when she finally had an out, couldn’t imagine herself without it. Dick wanted to get revenge on the person who got his parents killed and then decided to keep going.”

He frowned. “You make it sound addictive.”

“Oh, yeah, it definitely is.” Adrien sighed. “There’s a lot of reasons why we didn’t tell you but that was one of them. When you start you don’t stop. We made that mistake with Dick, we’re hoping that you’ll not do it.”

Jason set the knife down, finally. “But you wouldn’t stop me if I still wanted to?”

He winced. “No. If you wanted to then we’d give you a miraculous -- powers -- and you’d get to go out and fight crime.”

“You trust me?” He said with a laugh.

“Should I not?”

He rolled his eyes. “I grew up on the streets. Most people don’t.”

“Jay, no offense but I’m not scared of you. You could have stolen from us or attempted to hurt us at any point over the last few months and you didn’t.”

“You’re vigilantes! It’s not like I could have done any of that!”

He shrugged and stretched out lazily. “You’re right, you wouldn't have succeeded. But you didn’t know that. You thought we were just some really trusting rich people.”

Jason considered this with a frown, and then he looked at Adrien. “I want to be a vigilante.”

He groaned a little bit but nodded. “Fine. Take off your -- Mari’s -- whatever -- THE jacket and the hoodie for a minute so I can see who should train you?”

The kid looked a little uncomfortable but he did comply.

Adrien frowned at all the tiny scars but didn’t say anything as he carefully examined his build. Definitely closer to him than Marinette or Dick.

He would take up the physical aspect of training, then.

“Right, how much do you know about self-defense?”

~

The four of them sat on the floor, sifting through the different miraculi for ones that could protect Jason in battle.

Marinette hummed to herself as she sifted through her pile.

After a minute, Dick held up the turtle miraculous. “This one can keep him safe -- wait a minute, why didn’t I get this one?”

“Didn’t match your fighting style or personality,” said Adrien absently, his head tipping from side to side as he considered the miraculous.

“If we want to give him that one then he’s going to need a different weapon. What would you like, sweetie?”

Jason thought for a minute, staring at Wayzz.

Then his eyes lit up. “Can I have a gun?”

“I…” Began Marinette, then she shrugged. “Actually, we could probably use another long-distance fighter on the team.”

“And it keeps him a pretty safe distance away from the fighting…” Agreed Adrien.

Dick hesitated. “But guns are pretty lethal. He isn’t an adult.”

“Damn, that really is going to come back to bite me, huh?”

Jason frowned. “What? What’s going on?”

“Basically, we have a rule that says kids aren’t allowed to kill,” said Adrien, sending his wife a tired glare.

She gave him a tense smile in return. “Killing people messes you up, so we’re trying to keep you guys away from it.”

Jason hesitated a little bit. “I’ve kinda… already…”

The three others’ eyes widened and they gave each other nervous glances. Jason couldn’t seem to finish, and they didn’t ask him to. They could guess what he was trying to get at.

And they didn’t know how to respond. Their problem had been with introducing kids to murder, because they knew that it was something you never really came back from… but he’d already done it...

They figured that, from the way he said it, he had probably had no choice in the matter and was regretting doing it…

“I guess… we let him kill if he wants?” Said Adrien slowly.

Dick scratched his head. “I guess?”

The three of them shrugged at each other. It was probably -- no, definitely -- not the right decision but they really didn’t know what to do.

“I think he’d look cute with pistols,” said Marinette after a few minutes of silence.

Adrien, who was the only other person who had seen the turtle miraculous’s suit, nodded his agreement.

Jason transformed for the first time.

Dick nodded as well. “Pistols would be cute.”

~

Adrien smiled as he watched Jason mess around with his new powers.

There wasn’t much to them. They created a force field around an item or person of your choosing that held for as long as you stayed awake…

Still, he was proud of him. Baby’s first powers and all.

The three older vigilantes were casually throwing things and hitting the forcefield in an attempt to break it, and Jason was holding up surprisingly well.

“So, what’re you going to call yourself?” Adrien asked as he drummed his staff on it.

Jason thought for a minute and then smiled. “How about… Green Helmet?”

Marinette hit the force field too hard and the cane came back to hit her in the head, which could not be helping her growing headache.

She pursed her lips tightly as she lowered herself down into a chair. “You… you have a hood.”

“I disagree.”

“You can’t -- I’m literally a designer! My word is law! That’s a hood!”

“Nope.”

“Chaton! Tell him that’s a hood!”

Adrien sighed. “It’s a hood,” he agreed.

Everyone looked at Dick, who was beginning to look like he’d rather be anywhere else. He eyed the door out of the corner of his eyes as if wondering whether he could get away before they caught him.

He must have come to the conclusion that he couldn’t get there in time, because he gave his answer:

“It… could be a helmet if he wants it to be…”

Adrien rolled his eyes as the family erupted into an argument over what constitutes a hood versus what constitutes a helmet.

~

Marinette hummed lightly as she made brownies (she had faith, okay? No one was helping this time so it should work). Jason was sitting in a chair nearby, head resting on the back of it as he watched her.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” She asked. It was normal for Jason to watch her cook, he liked to keep his eye on food when he could, but he seemed almost… anxious. She could hear the gentle clinking of his rings as he messed with them.

“I… I want to buy something,” he said.

She dropped her bag of sugar into the bowl and hissed a string of curses as she looked at the now definitely ruined batter. Sure, she could technically go through and try to fix the ratios by adding more of everything else, but that would make enough brownies to feed a whole army --.

Wait a minute, what had he said?

Her eyes flicked to Jason. “Sorry? You want to buy something?”

He nodded with a tiny smile. “It’s a little expensive, I’m sorry, but… could we?”

Marinette was willing to buy a car if this kid asked, because he was ASKING HER TO BUY SOMETHING OH MY GOD, but she played it cool with a tiny nod.

“Sure, sweetie, let me just see how much it costs.”

He pulled up a picture on his phone and showed it to her.

It was a hardcover copy of an illustrated version of a book he liked. For forty dollars.

Okay, so he wasn’t asking for much, but it was still something! An improvement!

She smiled. “Sure, sweetie, I’ll get it next time I head out, okay?”

Jason beamed.

~

Adrien rolled his eyes when Dick flung himself across the couch dramatically.

“This isn’t faaaaiiiiir,” he whined.

He looked at his wife pleadingly and she clicked her tongue before lifting Dick’s head so she could sit down. She ran her fingers through her kid’s hair in an attempt to soothe him.

“He already knew a bit of self-defense when we met him so that was fine and we even gave extra time on training in his powers and with guns. We literally have no excuses for bringing him on at this point.”

“But I had to train for three years! He only had to do one!”

Jason grinned. “Maybe I’m just better.”

“Jay,” said Adrien exhaustedly.

“Or the favorite,” he added, his grin somehow growing.

“Jay!”

It was a good thing that Marinette had had a hold on Dick, because if she hadn’t he probably would have launched himself at his brother.

“You weren’t of age, he is,” she reminded him. “If you’d been old enough a year in then we would have let you do crime fighting, too.”

This was a lie, Dick had not been at all prepared after a year of training, but it made the kid smile so at least that was good.

Adrien stretched out from his spot in the window. “Right, we let Dick choose his first mission, what do you want to do first?”

Jason broke into a wide grin.

“There were some people who gave all the homeless kids trouble…”

~

They’d tracked the gang’s activities to a warehouse and had filed inside.

Adrien had helped Marinette carry their kids to the trusses above them (neither of their weapons had an easy way up, though they made mental notes to get them some kind of… grappling hook, maybe? It was a work in progress idea).

Dick shrouded them in shadows and muted the squeaking of their boots on the metal as they slowly made their way to the gang.

Adrien stretched his shoulders a little bit and then dangled his legs over to prepare himself for the jump down. Marinette and Dick copied his stance.

They looked at Jason, who gulped a little before copying the stance.

They hopped down as a family…

Because nothing says family bonding like murdering a bunch of gang members.

~

“Hey?”

Adrien looked up and frowned, alarm bells ringing in his ears. Jason was shuffling from foot to foot anxiously from his spot in the doorway. An anxious kid? This couldn’t be good...

“Yes, Jay?”

Jason messed with his rings.

“Since I’m going to be… here for a while, can we take the car to pick up my stuff?”

Adrien would have pinched himself to check if this was a dream if any of his dreams were ever this nice.

He dropped the book he was reading onto the bed and pushed himself up. “I -- wow! Okay! Of course!”

Jason gave an awkward smile.

Adrien tried not to smile too much as he followed the kid’s directions.

Mainly because this might dredge up bad memories for Jason, and he didn’t want to be too caught up in his euphoria of the kid genuinely accepting being part of the family to notice that he was shutting down.

But, to his surprise, Jason actually seemed just as excited.

They pulled up to a mostly abandoned looking greenhouse and Adrien raised his eyebrows slightly.

“What? I could grow myself food! It was good,” Jason defended himself.

He gave a smile, rolling his eyes. “Sorry, I was just trying to imagine you eating vegetables.”

Jason huffed a little bit and then held up a hand for Adrien to wait. He crouched down and then, after a bit of pushing, popped a pane of glass out of place. He set it down and then crawled through.

There was a bit of rustling inside and then the door swung open.

“Behold! My humble abode!”

Adrien raised his eyebrows as he stepped inside. ‘Humble’ was definitely the word for it…

His eyes scanned around and he had to hold back a frown at how little Jason had. There were a few plants. A bunch of vines and leaves had been piled together to make a makeshift ‘bed’ with a few blankets thrown overtop. A few random clothes were strewn about, all in varying states of shabbiness.

(There was also a bucket in the corner. Adrien was deciding to believe that it was for washing clothes.)

The only thing that Jason had really ‘had’ was the entire nook dedicated to books.

Adrien and Jason grabbed everything of importance to him and put it in the back of the car.

And then they started on their way home.


	4. Tim Drake

At first, Adrien didn’t really know whether or not they were being followed.

There are a lot of kids with black hair and blue eyes, and he had a tendency to patrol certain areas. It was entirely plausible that he could just be paranoid or imagining things.

But there was a point where you had to step back and say ‘no, that’s definitely not normal’.

And Adrien hit that point when he had started counting the times he spotted the kid and ended up with eleven times by the end of the week.

He stopped in the middle of patrol and sat down on his favorite gargoyle for a short break to text the family about his findings. They deserved to know what was going on...

 _ChatoNoir_ : I think there's a person following us.

 _HelmetRights_ : Lol

 _ChatoNoir_ : This is serious!

 _Buginette_ : is it the scrawny kid with black hair and blue eyes

 _ChatoNoir_ : You’ve seen him, too?

 _RockinRobin_ : we all have????

 _HelmetRights_ : Lol

 _Buginette_ : their fine if you wanna get rid of them just wave they get all blushy and hide

 _HelmetRights_ : *They’re

 _Buginette_ : bitch lets see you type in french

 _HelmetRights_ : Qu'est-ce que je devrais dire

 _RockinRobin_ : alkdjfskdjfksdl

There was a few seconds while Marinette typed, and then apparently deleted her message because it never came through.

Adrien almost smiled but then he remembered what they were supposed to be talking about.

 _ChatoNoir_ : Can we get back on subject?

 _HelmetRights_ : Lame

 _Buginette_ : whats the point its just a fan

 _HelmetRights_ : I just wish he’d go back to not taking pictures I’ve missed so many shots because of his stupid flash going off

 _RockinRobin_ : i think it’s flattering

 _HelmetRights_ : Lol

 _Buginette_ : relax its whatever as long as he doesnt get hurt watching us

He sighed and closed his eyes. Fair enough. It’s a kid, those aren’t exactly a threat.

Still, he was a bit concerned. Not for them, they’d be fine, but for the kid. Adrien and Dick were the only ones with some kind of schedule for patrolling because of his job and Dick’s schooling, but Marinette and Jason apparently saw him pretty consistently, too. Just where were this kid’s parents? Were they okay with him being out all the time?

But he figured he must have been overreacting. Maybe they were a street kid like Jason…

No, they had decent clothes.

Adrien frowned to himself. Weird.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. After all, he only had another hour for patrols before he would need to go home to get ready for work. The kid would still be a problem in a few days, anyways...

~

It turned out Adrien was right to worry, because Marinette spotted the kid a few days later… while she was a civilian.

She had been in her favorite cafe, sipping at a cup of coffee as she read through the newspaper. It was an article about the vigilantes, debating things like ‘What the fuck were they thinking letting kids join them?’ and ‘Why can’t the kids name themselves?’

She found it amusing, even if it was calling her and her family out.

But then she’d felt someone’s eyes on her.

She slowly looked up, expecting a person who wanted to sit or a guy who wanted to flirt…

Only to see the kid.

They locked eyes for a few seconds.

Did he know? Surely, he couldn’t. They did everything from applying makeup to using codenames to hide their identities…

But that was the same starstruck look he wore whenever he looked at their vigilante identities…

She gave him a tiny wave and watched him blush and slump a little in his chair to hide.

Huh.

~

“Hey, so heads up, I think stalker kid might know who we are.”

Adrien dropped the textbook he was scanning for a refresher on algebra. Dick fell from the ceiling. Jason just looked up in surprise.

“WHAT?!”

“Yeah, I don’t know for sure, though. He could just have a thing for people who look like us. Somehow, I doubt it, though. We can’t all be his type.”

“We don’t know how desperate he is,” Jason pointed out.

Marinette hesitated, then gave a tiny shrug as if to say ‘you’re right, I guess…’

“Hello?” Adrien waved his hands to get their attention. “Could you guys please take this seriously? A kid knows our identities!”

“We don’t even know that for sure, though,” said Dick as he started climbing onto the nearest ceiling light. “And, if he does, so what? It’s a kid. People hardly listen to kids.”

He sighed. “Yes, but if he found out then other people might be able to, too. Shouldn’t we ask?”

The family considered this for a minute…

And then Marinette shrugged. “We need to know for sure if he knows our civilian identities, first, though. Everyone keep a lookout?”

Everyone nodded, bored and reluctant.

Adrien frowned. He loved his family, he just wished they’d take things more seriously sometimes… or, at least, not brush past things so quickly...

His watch beeped and he sighed. He pushed the thought aside. He needed to get ready for work.

~

After everyone had spotted them in their civilian forms several times, they decided to call it: the kid knew who they were.

(At least he wasn’t taking pictures of them as civilians, they thought, because that would be uncomfortable.)

So, for the first time in ages, the four of them were spotted doing a casual patrol together. It was kind of fun, actually. Dick and Marinette practiced some old circus acts that they remembered, Jason and Adrien raced. Maybe they should do it more often…

Marinette and Dick were walking along some power lines when Dick suddenly stopped to point down.

Her eyes followed to find the kid and she whistled for Adrien and Jason’s attention.

The kid was alone on a rooftop. He didn’t seem concerned that they were all pointing at him, though maybe a little flustered…

But then he did freak out.

Because the vigilantes jumped down in a loose circle around him.

Their stalker spun around anxiously as if he wasn’t sure who to look at.

Dick cleared his throat. “Right, do you know why we’re here?”

“I…” The kid finally stopped spinning to look at Marinette and Adrien. “Because I know your identities?”

“Yes. How exactly did you do that?” She said, crossing her arms over her chest.

The kid cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, I’m a big Haly’s circus fan --.”

“Ah, shoot,” Dick muttered.

“And… I was looking through some old footage of you guys on Youtube… and I realized that Robin did a move that only Dick Grayson would know. And, if Dick Grayson was Robin, then you guys all had to be vigilantes.”

The entire family was glaring at Dick.

The man in question just awkwardly looked to the side.

Marinette clicked her tongue and then looked back at the kid. “Okay, what was the url of the footage you got? I’ll see if we can give them a copyright strike. Youtube’s system is broken so it’d probably work.”

The kid in question shook his head. “You don’t have to. I got rid of it myself.”

“Oh… thanks. Is it anywhere else that you know of?”

“No, I got rid of everything on the internet that could trace back to you guys.”

The family looked at each other, confusion on all of their faces. How…? This kid was fifteen, max, there was no way…

Well, maybe he was bluffing so he could keep the footage. They’d check later.

Jason was apparently done with caring about what was going on, because he had sat down and started checking his guns to make sure they were all okay.

Marinette was feeling much the same, leaning on her cane. “Great, well, thanks for that, I guess… could you maybe stop stalking us as civilians, though?”

“Don’t worry, I’m just doing that to get enough proof to clear your names and then I’ll go back to just watching you as vigilantes.”

“Oh, ok -- wait, what?” Said Dick, frowning a little bit.

The kid frowned as well. “I’m clearing your name… do you not know?”

The four looked at each other before shaking their heads in unison.

He sighed and brought out his phone to pull up an article. He passed it to Jason because he was closest and he cursed quietly.

“The gist of it is people are starting to wonder if you’ve gone bad,” explained the kid as Jason scrolled through the article. “It’s just a gossip column thing right now but I figured I should get proof you guys are still good in case it gained traction.”

Marinette frowned. “I’d understand if they thought we were just bad, not everyone understands that we kill people for the greater good, but saying we’ve gone bad implies that we’ve somehow gotten worse…?”

The phone was passed to her and her first instinct, much like Jason’s, had been to curse.

“Well, there’s been rumors of you and Riddler being friends for years now --.”

“WE’RE NOT,” Marinette hissed, and it took a lot of mental power to not crush the phone in her hands. She passed it on to Dick just in case. “He’s just helpful on some cases is all.”

Adrien rolled his eyes.

The kid sighed lightly. “And, on top of that, all of your most recent high-level takeouts have helped a particular mob boss, Antony Agoura, gain power.”

Her first instinct was ‘cool, thanks for the name, let’s kill him’, but then she forced herself to reconsider.

It seemed that taking down people just helped someone else take their place, which didn’t really surprise her. The moment anything was freed from someone’s hold, there would always be people who would do their best to grab it…

But then what was the solution? The situation with Agoura itself was proof that just murdering the head and saying ‘alright, next thing’ wasn’t working. Someone would just pop up to take his place --.

Adrien met her eyes and they shared anxious frowns.

Fuck, they were actually going to have to think about this one, huh?

~

He fell back on the couch and closed his eyes.

He listened to his family mull about. He could hear the quiet creaking of Dick getting on a light, could hear Marinette pulling out baking pans, could hear the clinking of Jason’s rings.

He sighed.

What could they do?

They had had a rule that they would never kill henchmen because they often weren’t working just for fun, they had a family to feed or hadn’t been able to get a job elsewhere.

Besides, with the mobster gone, there would be little reason for the police to let them go. They’d serve hard time and then, hopefully, come out a better person.

(Probably not. The prison system needed work.)

But…

He had remembered the name Agoura. He had been under Zucco at some point. He wasn’t sure whether he’d been a mob boss or a henchman at the time, though it didn’t really matter. There were a lot of people who had started out as henchmen that had somehow gotten power.

He sighed. He hated systemic issues.

The main problem, he thought, was that mobsters didn’t fear death as much as they should. Sure, everyone fears death on some level, but the people of Gotham knew what they were doing when they decided to get to that point. They would die if they got caught, and they were willing to take the risk in order to get the money and power that came along with being mobsters.

What did they fear? What weren’t they prepared to face?

He opened his eyes and looked over at Dick, who was currently reviewing for final exams from the ceiling.

The law, maybe? Serving actual hard time?

Well, it was worth a shot.

Dick was about to be a lawyer, so they had someone who would be able to try them in court…

But they needed a police officer to arrest them…

Marinette walked into the room and started looking for her shoes, cursing out brownies.

“Chocolate sauce. How did I forget that? Kwami!” She clicked her tongue. “Son of a -- where are my shoes?”

“Shoes are under the couch,” said Dick calmly.

Marinette gave the world’s angriest “Thank you!” as she ducked down and grabbed them.

“M’lady,” said Adrien.

She paused, looking over at him. “Yes, Chaton?”

“I have an idea for what to do about our newest problem, if you’d like to hear it.”

She tipped her head to the side a little, smiling.

“Sure, but make it quick, I can only keep Dick and Jason away from the batter for so long.”

~

Hey, New Jersey, what the fuck?

It had literally been easier to get into the circus than it had been to become a police officer.

She’d already gotten a degree in criminal justice a few years back. Why? Because she was really bored.

(Also, she’d wanted to mess with Officer Ross and she had decided that it would be funny to memorize as many laws as possible to point out when his buddies weren’t abiding by them.)

The test had been almost painfully easy. She spoke English as a second language and she’d thought that she was reading almost every question wrong. Some of these people would be detectives one day, you’d think they’d ask for more than basic reading comprehension. The most difficult question she’d gotten was one about license plates, and even then it was multiple choice so she’d had a 20% chance of guessing right.

And then getting a job in the GCPD was somehow easier.

Though she figured out why that last part had happened the first day she walked into work.

Can someone say ‘diversity hire’?

She hugged herself awkwardly. Really? Was she the only person of color in this place?

Wait, there was a singular black guy. She was wrong. She was just the only woman of color. Yay.

But, it seemed, her day was about to get worse.

“Marinette Agreste?”

Her nails dug into her arms and she turned to look at Officer Ross. “That’s me.”

“I’m here to give you a tour of the place. Ready?”

Asshole. Chienne. Motherfucker. Other swear words she couldn’t think of she was so mad.

She forced a smile to her face. “Sure!”

~

Yay. Galas. He always loved those.

He reached out and helped Jason with his tie and then ruffled his red curls. “What’s the rule?”

Jason grinned. “If you absolutely have to ruin someone’s life, do it discreetly.”

“Good.” He met Dick’s eyes in the mirror. “And what’s your rule?”

“... no hanging and/or swinging from chandeliers.”

“Thank you.” He looked at Tikki. “Please, just let us have one easy gala. No press, no kids getting their hands on wine, no people talking to Mari so we don’t have to leave early.”

Tikki shrugged.

He sighed. Yeah, he’d expected that. Worth a shot, though.

So, the four of them all head off. They told themselves that, hey, even if Tikki couldn’t promise that things will go okay, they could make it happen.

The peace lasted about ten seconds.

Because then Marinette hissed a curse and nodded her head to point out the kid.

He sighed. They hadn’t seen the kid in a while as civilians, so they’d thought that he had actually ended up agreeing that stalking them while they were civilians was taking it too far, but apparently not.

Wait a minute, galas were private events. How did he get in?

They started looking around for the kid’s parents, because obviously they had to be around, but they were nowhere near him.

Marinette and Adrien exchanged frowns.

And then their frowns deepened. Because they glanced behind themselves to look at their kids and found that they weren’t there anymore.

She clicked her tongue and looked around. “You deal with the stalker, I’ll go find the kids. I’m sure that one of them has found a loophole to their rule by now --.” Her eyes widened and she rushed away. “RICHARD JUST BECAUSE THAT’S NOT A CHANDELIER DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN CLIMB IT --.”

Adrien sighed.

He grabbed a glass of wine and then headed over to the kid. “Hey, kiddo, where are your parents?”

He shrugged and pointed over to the small crowd of people watching Marinette attempt to pry a glass of wine from Jason’s hands while they cursed each other out in French.

“Probably over there.”

Adrien winced. “Fun.”

“Your family is a disaster,” said the kid.

“Thanks,” Adrien muttered.

“I think it’s nice. When you’re vigilantes you’re basically gods, it’s nice to know you’re just people.”

He considered this for a second.

“Also, it’s really funny to watch,” added the kid.

He sighed and leaned back against the wall.

After a few minutes of watching the Agreste family crash and burn, the kid looked back over at him.

“Why are you still here?”

“Here with you, here at the gala, or here on Earth?” Adrien half-joked.

They shrugged. “Here with me. Your family needs you right now.”

“Marinette is the better problem solver of the both of us. Besides, you’re a kid, you shouldn’t be left alone.”

“I’m alone all the time, I’ll live.”

Adrien frowned. “What do you --?”

He was cut off when he spotted Marinette dragging Jason over by the back of his suit.

“Hold onto him, will you? I need to catch Dick before he breaks --.” There was a crashing sound nearby. She clicked her tongue. “... before he breaks that hedge. I’ll be back.”

Adrien absently held a hand out and Jason put his arm in it so he could keep a hold on him. His wife gave a tired smile before turning on her heel and stalking off to the hedge maze.

He sighed and looked back at the stalker. “Right, where were we…? Oh, what do you mean by you’re alone all the time?”

Jason’s eyes narrowed a little bit.

“My parents… go on a lot of trips.”

“Without you?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“What…? Why…?”

“You wouldn’t understand, you guys never go anywhere.”

Adrien opened his mouth and then closed it again. He wasn’t exactly wrong, but…

“Okay, point, but how often are you alone? Is that why you’re always following us? Do you go to school? Do --?”

He frowned and held up a hand. “That’s a lot of questions at once.” He started to count off on his fingers. “They’re never gone for longer than a month at a time but they only come back for a few days at most. Yes, it’s why I’m always able to follow you. And I’m homeschooled.”

Adrien’s frown was deepening more and more by the second. “Who are your parents, exactly? Or, I guess, who are you?”

“I’m Tim Drake.”

Drake. His eyes flicked to Jack and Janet Drake. He had talked to them a few times because they had a tendency to ask Marinette for commissions (or, at least, they did until Dick and Jason came along and kept their parents distracted for the entire time they were there). Still, he hadn’t even known that they had a kid…

Jason suddenly tugged on his arm, pulling Adrien’s attention back to him.

“Dad, it looks like Dickwad and Mom are wanting to go.”

He frowned and looked up to find that, yes, Marinette had managed to catch Dick and was now waving for their attention from the door.

He winced and looked back over at the kid. “Tim…”

Jason tugged harder on his arm. “Dad, let’s go.”

Adrien gave an apologetic look but allowed Jason to pull him out the door.

The silence in the car was deafening that night, everyone lost in their thoughts.

~

Marinette was now constantly fighting the urge to punch someone.

Why are all cops just… the absolute worst? Sure, some of them aren’t directly beating up the teenagers that are brought in for information or planting evidence, but they weren’t exactly saying anything about it.

And then there was the fact that she’d been paired with Officer Ross.

Really, she should have expected it. She’d known that his partner had recently passed away in the field, and that he would need another.

If she’d known that she’d have ended up the lucky officer, she would have said fuck it to the whole trying something new thing and just gone after Agoura’s head like normal.

Now she’d gotten too far to just give up...

Didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be bitter about it.

As a way to vent her anger, she’d wanted to ask what happened to his old partner but then this stupid thing called ‘morals’ got in the way. Really unfortunate, because now all she could really do was glare at the stack of paperwork that she was being forced to make a digital copy for over her cup of coffee.

She felt an arm rest on her shoulder and cursed internally. She forced a smile to her face as she looked up to see…

Dick. Oh, thank the kwamis.

Marinette grinned. “Hey, sweetie, how did finals go?”

“I don’t want to jinx it.”

She hummed her understanding and moved on. “No problems?”

Dick gave a tiny shrug. “There was a few problems, there was a really annoying kid next to me that apparently still hasn’t learned how to breathe through his nose, but… they actually listened to the doctors and gave me extra time, so that’s good.”

She got up and wrapped him in a hug. “So, out of college officially. How’s it feel?”

He hugged her back, absolutely beaming. “If I passed.”

She clicked her tongue. “Right. But, let’s say you did. Then you’re out.”

“Then I’m out!” He said, pulling back and resting his hands on his hips. “Now all I have to do is find a job.”

“How horrible,” she said sarcastically.

“Yeah. Speaking of horrible jobs, wanna leave?”

“I do, but I have to finish this.” She sat back down and pulled up the daunting task in front of her. She had to type up another few pages and she was not eager to do so. Still, the commissioner had asked to get her email by the end of her shift and, if Dick was here, she was already behind. “I’ll need around an hour, I think.”

He groaned and pulled out his phone.

She smiled faintly and went back to working.

Or, at least, she tried to.

Officer Ross was talking to Dick.

“So, you’re her kid?”

“One of two!”

Ross laughed. “Tell me, is she always so angry at home?”

“Not really. Our family doesn’t really get angry in general, at least not at home. I think we all vent our anger at work, though.”

“Hm. Weird.”

Dick gave a tiny shrug.

“So, just graduated, then?”

“Mhmm! I just finished law school! I’m gonna be a lawyer!”

Ross’s eyes narrowed a little bit. “A lawyer, huh? Are you going to be the one doing the persecuting or defending?”

“Um…” said Dick, who seemed to be just now remembering that cops and lawyers didn’t exactly get along if the way his smile was dropping was any indication. He looked to the side and brought a smile to his face again. “Persecuting. I’m on your side. It would be kind of embarrassing to go against my mom in court, don’t you think?”

He relaxed, nodding. “Good.”

They lapsed into an awkward silence after that and Marinette was finally able to concentrate…

For the two seconds of silence she got before Commissioner Gordon walked over to ask her when she’d be done.

She fought the urge to bang her head on the desk.

She turned around, about to throw Officer Ross under the bus, but it turned out she didn’t need to.

Because then his daughter showed up with some dinner for him.

Gordon turned around to greet her. Thank kwami, finally something was going right. Hopefully he’d forget about what he was doing (he was old, after all) and she’d have until he was back at his desk before he remembered. She’d have around half an hour.

Not enough time to do well but she could probably get away with it because she was still a relatively new hire...

She managed to hit send the second the commissioner turned away from his daughter and slumped in her chair. It wasn’t on time but at least she’d done it.

She looked at her empty coffee cup and clicked her tongue. She glanced at Dick. “I’ll be right back, I’m getting some of the free coffee before I go.”

“Didn’t you say it was awful?”

“Yeah but it’s free.”

“... we’re rich.”

“And?”

Dick grinned. “Whatever. Go ahead. I’ve waited this long.”

She sent him a wave and then disappeared to the break room, clocking out on the way.

When she came back out she found Dick flirting with the commissioner's daughter. She would have been proud if that wasn’t, y’know, her boss’s daughter oh my god she was screwed she was going to lose her job and then the mission would be compromised and --.

She practically ran over to sling her arm around her kid.

(She didn’t actually run, she had a mug of coffee in her hand and she thought that was much more important than any mission, but she was close to it.)

“Sweetie! Hi! We should be getting home, it’s your celebration-dinner-thingy-can’t-remember-the-English-word -- PARTY tonight! I can’t keep you any longer or there won’t be time to bake the cake.”

Dick gave her a bit of side-eye and she gave him a smile in return.

“But…”

Barbara laughed a little. “Go ahead. It’s cake, you can’t just pass up on cake.” She smiled. “Congrats on whatever it is, Dick.”

He looked to the side, smiling. “Thanks. I’d invite you because my mom’s a great baker… but it’s kind of a family thing.”

Barbara shrugged. “It’s fine. I doubt that my dad would be too thrilled about me getting lured into a house with cake, anyways. It’s not that far off from getting lured into the car with candy.” She broke into a grin. “Promise to bring some of her cake by sometime?”

“Sure. I’ll be by tomorrow with as much as I can save.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Dick finally allowed Marinette to pull him out of the police station, sending Barbara a wave over his shoulder long after she was out of view.

She clicked her tongue as they climbed into the car. “If I lose my job it’s on you.”

“Who knows, the commissioner might be mad at you because you got between us. Depends on what kind of dad he is.” His face split into a fox-like grin. “Besides, you should be thanking me. I just got us a backup plan. If you get fired, knowing the commissioner’s daughter would be useful.”

Marinette hummed thoughtfully. “Smart.”

“Thanks, I have my moments.”

“Yeah, ‘moments’ is definitely the word for it.”

He gasped and took a hand off the wheel to give her shoulder a tiny shove. “Rude!”

She just laughed.

~

It was inevitable that it would happen at some point, but that doesn’t mean that they were happy about it.

Adrien had made a stupid mistake.

He had been alone on patrol. It had been a standard street fight, after all.

He’d seen the flash of Tim’s camera out of the corner of his eyes and looked up at the wrong time. Now he had a bullet in his shoulder, his staff was rolling across the floor, and he’d had to duck for cover behind a car to ensure that the one bullet didn’t turn to twenty.

So the night was already going great.

But then he realized that some of the people had also noticed the flash going off and were now going to investigate.

His day just kept getting better.

He pulled out his phone.

 _ChatoNoir_ : H! E8th, Eads. LW, 1?C-K.

 _HelmetRights_ : I’m close I’ll help

He breathed out a sigh of relief. His miraculous was the most useful for situations like this.

He brought a hand to his shoulder and flinched a little bit. He had a few minutes before he bled out.

Adrien slowly poked his head around the car. They were all distracted fighting each other...

Good?

He slowly reached out and pulled a nearby body over to him and peeled their shirt off. He needed it more than them right now, anyways. He bandaged his wound and then looked around again, this time searching the ground for his staff.

Ah. It was pretty much in the exact center of all the fighting. Fun.

How about no?

He looked around wildly for inspiration. What to do, what to do, what to do…

He ran out from behind the car and made his way over to the building where he had last seen Tim’s flash. The gang members would likely be there for a while, probably until Jason could come over, and Tim’s situation would get worse by the second. Hopefully the kid had enough sense to hide…

He stepped inside the old office building. Abandoned, probably, there was a thin coating of dust on everything and the only light in the place was a result of the sunlight streaming in through open windows.

He listened in for anyone and winced when he heard a metallic clang above him. He ran up the stairs and looked around.

A kid… was trying to fight… five fully grown gang members…

It was going about as well as you’d expect.

Would it kill people to have even a scrap of common sense?

He flinched when he heard a bone crunch.

Adrien grabbed the nearest desk lamp and looked around. He hooked it around a light and tested the strength…

Not great.

Whatever, he was already injured.

He heard a gunshot outside and breathed a sigh of relief. Jason, probably.

Hopefully...

The gang members looked up at the sound and Adrien took his chance, pressing his hand to the floor and mumbling a Cataclysm.

Black webbed along the floor and it crumbled beneath everyone.

He swung over and grabbed Tim from thin air. Much like he’d expected, the cord snapped under their combined weight and they were in free fall. Adrien pulled the kid to his stomach and flipped them around in the air to make sure he was the only one to actually hit the ground.

Adrien hit the floor and tried not to think about the piece of rubble now lodged in his back and the way the bullet in his shoulder was definitely displaced now and he was bleeding faster and OW.

He released his grip on Tim so his claws wouldn’t dig into him and rested his head back on the cold floor.

“You alright, Tim?”

“Not really.”

He wheezed out a laugh. “Same here.”

He felt Tim shift his weight on top of him and winced mentally at the rubble digging into him, and looked over. It was dark, the sunlight had been clouded by the dust drawn up by the collapse of the second floor. He didn’t know if Tim could see but that was fine. Adrien could.

He slowly pushed himself up and looked for any sign of movement.

He could see a couple of the gang members stirring. He shook his head a little bit and rested a hand on top of Tim’s head. “Stay. I’ll be back.”

“I’m not a dog.”

“Don’t care. Stay. Here.”

Tim looked annoyed but he sat himself down and rested his head on his hand. Adrien glanced him over. One of his legs was definitely broken and he was littered with thin cuts and bruises but he seemed otherwise fine.

Maybe his definition of ‘fine’ needed some work…

He pulled his attention back to the people that were getting up and he grabbed a nearby blunt object: a rock!

Well, a piece of the floor, but it was pretty much a rock.

Adrien made his way around with his rock and made sure that everyone would stay down. He didn’t exactly aim to kill but he wasn’t exactly concerned if he ended up doing so.

After a few minutes he walked back over to Tim and he slowly helped him to his feet, letting him sling an arm over him for support as he helped him walk out.

Jason was outside, checking bodies for extra bullets.

He looked up and frowned. “You look awful.”

“Thanks. I have a photoshoot tomorrow and I was really hoping that I would like ‘awful’ for it.”

“No problem.” His eyes found their way to Tim and he rolled his eyes. “So, what, are you adopting him, now?”

Tim frowned. “I… have parents.”

“Barely,” muttered Adrien.

“Mom will kill you if you adopt another kid.”

“I’m not scared of Mari.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Yes, I am.”

He sighed and closed his eyes.

He didn’t just want to leave a kid in a bad situation, but Marinette had been annoyed by him adopting Jason…

He peeked an eye open and looked at the kid next to him.

“I have a plan.”

“Oh no,” mumbled Jason.

Adrien looked at Tim. “Would you like to live with us?”

Tim thought for a minute, then shrugged. “It would be cool to actually have someone in the house with me.”

“Oh no,” Jason mumbled again, starting to mess with his rings.

Adrien broke into a grin.

“Awesome. Let’s get you home.”

~

Marinette noticed Tim the moment she walked into the kitchen.

She gave her husband a tired look. “Please tell me you didn’t adopt another one.”

“I didn’t. He has parents, I can’t adopt him.”

Her eyes found Dick’s for confirmation. He gave a small shrug.

She relaxed a little bit. “Good. Why’s he here?”

“He got hurt stalking me, his leg’s all busted up.”

Tim showed her his leg and she winced. They’d set it back into place but all the bandages said that it couldn’t have been a nice experience.

“Sorry about that, sweetie, do you want a cake or something? I can make one.”

Tim smiled. “No, thank you.”

Marinette, who had already been pulling out pans, gave him a confused look. She slowly put the pans back. “Oh… okay.”

“I have a dietician. She’d kill me if I went too far off,” he explained. “But I’ve heard good things about your baking.”

She nodded slowly. “Right.”

Adrien met her eyes hesitantly and she knew that whatever he was going to say she wasn’t going to like it.

“I’m going to train him in self-defense.”

She clicked her tongue. She knew what that meant by now. “You are not making this random child a vigilante. It’s bad enough when we let our own kids do it, he isn’t ours.”

Adrien held up his hands. “He got hurt stalking us. I just don’t want a repeat. I won’t give him a miraculous, okay?”

She frowned suspiciously but nodded that he could do that.

Adrien visibly relaxed.

Marinette took in the bandaging on her husband and she frowned. “How bad is it?”

“Uh… one bullet to the shoulder and some shrapnel got me in the back. Not that bad.”

She nodded and leaned over, pressing a kiss to his lips. “No patrol for a month.”

“But --.”

“No.”

He pouted a little bit but nodded. “Fine. I can still help this kid learn self-defense, though, right?”

She considered this for a minute and then nodded. “Since you’re teaching basics you’re not going to be doing much physically… so, yes. But get help from someone if you want to do anything strenuous.”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah.”

Marinette hummed lightly. She glanced at the time. She had a few hours to patrol before Dick confirmed she hadn’t slept in a few days and came to physically knock her out…

She started up the coffee machine.

(Dick narrowed his eyes in the background and started trying to remember when the last time she’d gone to sleep was.)

“Ew, you drink coffee?” Said Tim.

Marinette slowly turned on him, her eyes narrowing. “It keeps you awake.”

Adrien and Dick looked hopeful, probably thinking that Tim would make her realize her caffeine addiction and tendency not to sleep was unhealthy.

And then he spoke: “Sure, but have you tried energy drinks? They taste better and have sugar.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Not enough caffeine.”

“You haven’t found Bam, then. Once you get past their political donations they’re GREAT. A 16 ounce can has almost three times as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.”

The other guys went pale.

She broke into a wide grin. “I like you.”

“This was a mistake,” mumbled Adrien.

“Yep! C’mon, Tim, we’re going to the store. I'll help you walk.”

~

Listen, opening a portal to a pocket dimension wasn’t easy… but he was perfectly willing to do it for his kid.

No. His soon-to-be kid. His wife still hadn’t said yes.

No. His soon-to-be younger housemate. Tim still had legal parents.

Whatever.

It was good, too, the portal was hidden to the naked eye for everyone but him, so there was no worries of Marinette finding out too early.

(Unless she just decided to randomly lean against the wall in the hallway.)

And, as far as pocket dimensions go, it was decent. Empty outside of a few things that Tim had brought over from his house and a lot smaller than any other room in the house... but decent. It didn’t have a single monster living in it, that’s pretty good by pocket dimension standards.

Jason and Dick had both complained when they realized that Tim got a room of his own, even though they knew the circumstances. Adrien was forced to make another.

Was Adrien a little worried that the dimension that they were currently in would become unstable if he opened two portals in close proximity to each other? Yes. But it didn’t collapse on them when he did it, so it’s all good.

There had been a monster in that one.

Adrien was going to be feeling that bite on his arm for the next few years, he thought.

But, hey, at least now everyone had their own rooms. And all the boys seemed happier for it.

Well, Jason still seemed a little annoyed that there was now another kid in the house and Dick was clearly anxious that Marinette would find out and get mad at them and Tim was clearly struggling to understand the whole ‘no longer an only child that lives mostly alone and therefore needs to at least wear pants around the house’ thing, but shhhhhhh avoiding problems is the Agreste forte.

Yes, even Tim Drake was in the practice of avoiding problems.

Adrien figured that if he adopted enough kids eventually one of them would have a good coping mechanism and they could steal that.

But, until then, avoiding problems would have to work.

~

A routine was forming, and she hated it.

She’d go to work for a large part of the day, and then get picked up by Dick. She’d spend about two hours in the break room drinking the free coffee and scrolling through her phone so her son could chat up the commissioner’s daughter. She’d grab him by the arm with some vague excuse about how they needed to get home. She’d get dropped off at random places in Gotham and start on patrols. She’d get home early in the morning and chug another few cans of Bam with Tim.

Then she’d start it all over again.

But she’d hated it more when the routine was suddenly broken.

She felt a hand rest on her shoulder and nearly tore the file she was looking through in half in her surprise. It surely couldn’t be time for Dick to pick her up yet…

She looked over at her computer for the time and her eyes caught the reflection of Barbara on the black screen.

Marinette slowly turned around. “Hey.”

“Can I talk with you in private?”

She tried not to tense up. Most of the time when people say that you’re in trouble. She didn’t want to get in trouble with the boss’s daughter.

“Mhmm!” She handed the file over to Ross to hold onto and then followed Barbara down a few halls and up to the roof. She sent Tikki out to check for people and relaxed a little bit when the kwami shook their head no. Maybe this could just be about Dick --.

“Do you not like me?”

She blanked. “Huh? I… what? No. Do you think I’d stay after to let my son flirt with you every day if I didn’t?”

“No, but then I have to question why you always cut us short.”

“We have stuff to do at home.”

She shrugged. “But you hardly ever go home.”

Marinette took a cautious step back. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you and Dick never seem to go the same way twice when you leave.”

“You watch that?”

She shrugged again. “Of course. At first I thought it had something to do with traffic or errands, but then why would you always list a home activity?”

“Because what we do at our house is none of your concern,” said Marinette.

Barbara smiled. “You know, I work at the library.”

She tried not to frown at the change of subject. It was weird, but at least it had moved away from where she went at night.

“Alright.”

“I know your other son, Jason. He comes by pretty frequently with his dad.”

“Alright.”

“Want to tell me why he and I have had long conversations about how we hate cops?”

Marinette wanted to punch something. Still, she forced a smile. “It’s perfectly normal for kids to take opposite stances about things than their parents. Just like you and your dad.”

“Sure, but then why do you act like you hate cops?”

Wow. Even the commissioner's daughter knew she hated being a cop. She really needed to brush up on her acting skills… or get new ones. She didn’t know if she’d ever been good at acting.

“Listen, I know you’re planning to take this place down, I’m not stupid. I won’t rat you out, I want in.”

Well, that was a development.

Marinette narrowed her eyes slightly. “Really? Why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m dating your son, maybe?”

“YOU’RE DATING?!”

“YOU DIDN’T KNOW?!”

Both women immediately pulled out their phones and started texting Dick. Nothing bonds people better than anger and they were both ready to kill.

 _MA_ : come to the precinct please

 _#1Sweetie_ : kjsklfjdskfjdks does this have anything to do with barbara texting me at the same time

 _MA_ : yes

 _#1Sweetie_ : i’ll be right there

 _MA_ : were on the roof

Dick deleted and then retyped his message four times before sending:

 _#1Sweetie_ : fun can’t wait

For someone who ‘can’t wait’ he sure took his sweet time, though.

Now, if it was only Marinette that was mad, it probably would have just blown over. However, Barbara wasn’t an Agreste. She actually knew how to deal with problems.

When Dick finally managed to get up to the roof, he found the two women glaring at him.

“So, care to explain why you didn’t tell me you were dating Barbara?” Marinette said with a bright smile.

Dick looked to the side and then brought a smile to his face. “I was just waiting for the right time to announce it.”

They both shared skeptical looks and then looked back at him.

“Okay, fine. It’s because I didn’t want to be the one to bring another person into the house, Mari would’ve killed me.”

Marinette accepted that answer. Fair enough. She would have. If Marinette and Adrien not had jobs they might have been able to keep up with three (and a half including Tim, who was around enough because of his stalking and self-defense lessons for her to somewhat count him) other people in their house, but she doubted that they could fully parent three kids with both their civilian and vigilante jobs.

Dick relaxed a little and walked over to the women, taking a seat in front of them. “Are we alright?”

They both gave him nods, then gave each other wary looks.

Marinette glanced at the time. “I’ll be back to talk more about this after work. Meet us at the car?”

A few hours later, they all filed into the car. Dick and Barbara took the back seat and Marinette angled her mirror to watch them just in case.

“Right, where are you on your investigation?” Asked Barbara.

“She knows --?”

“Yep, you’re behind, sweetie.” Marinette glanced at the mirror and found Dick messing with a rubix cube and Barbara listening intently. “Right now we’re searching for proof of corruption in the police force. The higher up I can get the easier it will be to actually have people prosecuted.”

“... are you having any trouble with getting proof?”

She shrugged. “Unfortunately. It’s not like they document when they let someone go and it’s way too easy to claim that people were all bloody before they got there.”

Barbara frowned. “Take pictures.”

“Cops are stupid, but they’re not that stupid. If I take out a camera they’re going to notice.”

“Write it down yourself, then.”

“It’s my word against theirs.”

Barbara groaned. Marinette could relate. She’d been struggling to find any kind of proof that wouldn’t immediately be traced back to her for over a month now.

And all she needed was proof, really. She knew that Barbara’s dad, at least, wasn’t a bad cop. He was just, somehow, painfully unaware of the corruption in his precinct. If given proof of a person’s corruption he would, at the very least, fire them.

“Doesn’t help that the kind of people that the police let go are usually killed by one of the vigilantes before they get to the police,” added Dick.

“And, even if we were the kind of people that vigilantes talked to, it’s not like they could stop killing those people without everyone getting suspicious.”

“... I’m beginning to think this might be impossible.”

She gave a quiet laugh. “Yeah. Probably.” She pulled up in her driveway and blinked a few times. “Um… sorry for kidnapping you.”

“It’s cool, I wanted to ask Jason about some of his books.”

“Are they overdue?”

Barbara smiled. “Yep. I need to know if he lost it or if I should just recheck it out for him.”

Marinette nodded absently. “Cool. Dick, drive her home when she’s done? I need to go grocery shopping.”

She waved at them and then got out of the car, tossing the keys to Dick without either of them glancing over. With that, she head off for patrols.

~

Adrien blinked a few times to make sure he was seeing this.

Dick had a girlfriend. Who was the commissioner's daughter. Who was also a librarian at the library that he and Jason frequented.

And she knew about the whole ‘trying to take down random people in the police force so Marinette can advance and prosecute people properly’ thing.

But not the vigilante thing. The vigilante thing was too far, apparently.

He needed to sit down for a minute.

Adrien pulled a knee to his chest from his spot on the counter.

Jason had been the most blunt: “Did dad adopt you, too?”

“I have parents.”

“That didn’t stop him from adopting Tim.”

“I’m also dating your brother, that would mess things up.”

Jason relaxed a little bit when he realized that Adrien wouldn’t adopt her… and then he laughed. “Wait, you’re dating Dickwad?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you had taste.”

Barbara and Jason grinned at each other, much to Dick’s annoyance.

“Adrien! They’re being rude!” He complained.

He shrugged absently. “I don’t control them.”

“You can control Jason! He’s your kid! Take away his trust fund or something!”

“WAIT WHAT NO --.”

Adrien cut him off by laughing. “That would be funny but I doubt Mari would be alright with that.”

Tim walked in with a can of Bam and some instant coffee mix. Everyone watched in horror as he started pouring the Bam into the water part of the coffee maker.

“Hey, Timmy, whatcha doing?” Asked Adrien, despite being very sure he did not want to hear the answer.

Tim looked up. “Experiment.”

“I thought you didn’t like the taste of coffee, though…”

“It’ll be worth it for the extra caffeine.”

Jason laughed a little bit. “You’re going to die. Go ahead, though, I want to see it happen.”

Dick and Adrien met eyes. They needed to destroy that thing and also maybe find a way to block Marinette and Tim from getting to the store.

They nodded at each other before getting to work pulling Tim away from his creation.

~

Marinette hummed as she finished off the fourth cake she’d baked and decorated with a flourish.

She started washing the dishes she’d just used because she had run out of free pans to bake with and she couldn’t restart until they were washed.

Dick groaned from the doorway, holding his head as he slowly made his way inside.

“Good morning, sweetie.”

He groaned again and then apparently caught sight of the cakes on the table. He frowned a little bit. “Um…”

“I made a vanilla cake for you. It’s the one with the buttercream flowers.”

Dick hesitated for a minute before shrugging and sitting down with the cake. “Thanks, mom, but are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“... mom… as much as I love your cakes, you only bake this much when you’re stressed.”

She clicked her tongue. “Sweetie… I doubt you’ll be able to think of a solution if Adrien, Barbara, and I couldn’t think of something.”

“You went to Barbara and not me? Come on! At least let me try.”

She doubted that he could be of any help but whatever. If she told him and he couldn’t come up with something then he’d leave the subject alone, and if he came up with something then they’d have a solution. Win-win. Kinda.

“I have no clue how we’re going to get proof that people are corrupt.”

Dick thought for a minute, then shrugged. “Have someone join the mob. Any mob. There has to be at least a few moles. Take a few pictures or collect names and then take them to the commissioner.”

Marinette shook her head slowly. “Can’t, no one has enough time.”

“I do.”

“Sure, but you’re a kid and we’re not letting a kid join the mob.”

Dick huffed. “I’m twenty-three.”

“You don’t have any skills that the mob is looking for.”

“I’m a lawyer, they’d love to have me.”

“No.”

“But --!”

“NO, RICHARD!”

Dick flinched a little bit and looked down. He gave a quiet groan of irritation and pushed himself out of his chair. He took his cake to his room.

She closed her eyes. The problem would be gone by morning, but that didn’t mean that she liked that they’d fought.

She opened her eyes again and started pulling down ingredients.

~

Adrien knew that Marinette would catch on soon. It had been months since the incident, Tim was more than capable of taking care of himself. He was pretty sure the only reason that she hadn’t noticed anything was because her schedule was so messed up that she wasn’t registering time right.

He knew he should tell her but he couldn’t bring himself to. What if she kicked Tim out? What if she made him stop seeing the kid entirely? He couldn’t let that happen, the kid had gone through enough. No, he would have to wait for the perfect moment.

If she didn’t find out first.

Marinette walked into the kitchen in the morning and everyone tensed and glanced at Tim, who was casually playing a video game and definitely not learning self-defense.

Adrien sighed. Could he say he was just making sure Tim ate so he wouldn’t pass out? Would she believe that?

She walked over to the fridge and grabbed a can of Bam and then glanced back at the boys, her eyes glazed with exhaustion.

Then she gave every boy in the room a kiss on the cheek.

Yes, even Tim.

“I’ll be back after work. Are you picking me up like usual, sweetie?”

Dick blinked a few times and then stifled laughter with his hand. Once he’d managed to get his voice under control, he spoke: “Yep! I can’t wait to see Babs.”

“Gross. Right, I’m heading out.”

Everyone watched in stunned silence as she walked out.

Jason’s face soured.

And then he snapped his fingers. “I got it… HEY, MOM! YOU FORGOT THAT ROSS BROKE THE COFFEE MACHINE AT WORK!”

There was a beat.

“Jay, what the heck?” Hissed Adrien.

Marinette walked back in. “Guess who has been promoted to favorite.”

Dick gasped. “Wait, I was favorite beforehand?”

“No, Adrien was. I’m not telling you which kid was winning.”

“Hold up, I’ve been replaced as favorite over caffeine?”

Marinette nodded. She stole Tim’s laptop bag from him and then set three cans of the energy drink inside.

“Great, I’m off for real now.”

Jason slammed his head on the table, partially pulling his mother out of her stupor. “OH MY KWAMI. Mom. Tim has been living with us --.”

Adrien had clamped his hand over the kid’s mouth, but it was too late.

Marinette’s eyes slowly found their way to Tim and her face shifted from bored to angry in half a second.

He swallowed thickly. “M’lady, I can explain.”

“Please do.”

He hesitated. He hadn’t thought he’d get this far.

Her grip tightened on the strap of her bag when her phone went off in her pocket. She bit her lip and shook her head. She told her boss that she would be late because of a family matter, her eyes never leaving his.

He gave his most award-winning smile.

The kids filed out, though they both knew that they were going to just stand outside the door to listen in.

“Adrien, Tim has parents. You realize you essentially kidnapped that kid.”

“He went willingly!”

“Tell that to the cops!” She gave a bitter laugh. “Wait, you already are!”

He winced. “I know, I’m sorry. I couldn’t just leave him with his parents, though, they suck.”

Marinette clicked her tongue. “We can’t keep him. He isn’t ours and, even if he was, we hardly have the time to take care of three kids!”

“Dick can take care of himself, he’s an adult. So we’re back down to two! Actually, he can help take care of Tim, too, so less than two!”

“Remember when we said we wouldn’t have any?!”

“But we did fine!”

She groaned. “You’re not getting my point!”

“And you’re not getting mine! We can’t just leave that kid to suffer!”

“He’d suffer if he was with us, too!”

“He deserves people that love him to take care of him!”

“So does every kid on Earth! Are you going to adopt them all?!”

He rolled his eyes. “I want to but we have a limit... but this isn’t it! We’ve been doing just fine so far! He’s attached to us, we can’t just throw him out now!”

“I can’t let this one slide because I keep letting kids come in. It has to stop.”

“This is the last one,” he promised.

“I’ve heard that one before.”

“But I mean it this time.”

She scrutinized him for a long time, her lips pressed tightly together.

And then she clicked her tongue.

“Last one,” she muttered, pulling a new can from her bag and then turning. “I’ll see you after work.”

He watched her leave. He should say something, he should call her back and apologize, he should at least admit that what he was doing was wrong…

The front door slammed.

He slowly fell back into a chair and rested his face in his hands… only to realize it was wet. How long had he been crying? He breathed out a sigh.

He could feel eyes on him. He peeked between his fingers and saw the kids standing in the doorway, mouths slightly agape. He wiped his face on his sleeve and brought a smile back to his face.

Jason messed with his rings as he turned around and walked to his room.

“You didn’t want kids?” Asked Dick quietly.

His smile slid from his face.

“Not exactly. We wanted kids, but we figured we’d never be able to have them. I’m sorry it came out that way.”

Dick relaxed a little bit.

Adrien pushed himself up and walked over to Tim, resting a hand on top of his head.

“Right, welcome to the family, officially.”

~

Marinette rested her head on her desk.

“Um…?” Began Ross.

“Don’t. I’m not in the mood.”

“Okay.”

She heard his fingers get back to work on his keyboard and closed her eyes.

She’d officially hit a wall. What she needed was to get her hands on the security camera’s footage but she knew that they simply turned off the cameras when they let someone go.

Her mind wandered to Tim.

She bit her lip and sat up, pulling up a new tab and searching up “Haly’s Circus Dick Grayson” but, to her surprise, she found that any footage of her son during his time there had been scrubbed clean.

So, the kid had been telling the truth?

Well, he might be able to fix her current problem…

And, honestly, she was pretty much desensitized to the idea of a kid vigilante at this point. Partially because their family was up to four people who started being vigilantes as kids and partially because Dick and Jason had saved Marinette and Adrien quite a few times.

Besides, like it or not Tim was in the family now. That’s pretty much the main requirement, it seems.

That night she approached Tim about hacking.

“Right, what exactly would you need to hack into the police station security cameras?”

He frowned. “Probably a new computer that isn’t linked to me as a person. And I’d probably need to be inside the security room for a while, or at least the building.”

She thought about this for a minute and nodded. “Okay. I can get you that. Anything else?”

“Can I have a miraculous?”

She waved her hand vaguely. “Yeah, I was going to give you one anyways so we don’t have to do as much to delete footage… I was thinking the horse miraculous. Then you could get in and out of rooms pretty easily.”

“Cool. What are we trying to do, anyways?”

“Keep them from turning off the cameras when they need to do…” She trailed off, pursing her lips tightly. She knew this kid was around thirteen or fourteen, surely he knew all the kinds of things that went down at the GCPD, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. “... stuff.”

Tim nodded slightly. “I can do that, but I’d need to hide some kind of generator in the room. They might be unplugging the cameras to turn them off, I’d need to change some plugs around.”

“Great.”

They clinked their cans of energy drink together in a sort of toast.

~

Adrien should have expected something to go wrong.

Barbara and Dick had convinced the commissioner to go out to eat with them. Dick was now stressed for two reasons: the mission and the fact that he was officially meeting the parents.

Marinette had cleared a good amount of the precinct by offering to buy drinks. Even if her relationship with the precinct was… less than friendly, few people said no to free drinks paid for by the richest person there. This was mostly just to make sure people weren’t going to do overtime.

And Jason had drawn away the people currently on shift by ‘accidentally’ bowling over an abandoned building while on patrols.

Now it was just up to Adrien and Tim.

There was obviously a few people still there, it would have been too much to hope that the entire place would be empty. It didn’t matter, though, no one was suspicious of them. After all, Marinette would need a ride home and it wasn’t as if he could take Tim to a bar to wait.

And no one was suspicious of the fact that Tim had quickly pulled out his computer to ‘play some games’. Adrien had pulled out his phone as well, mostly to monitor the chats and make sure everyone was doing alright but also because he was bored.

A half hour later he got a tiny tug on his sleeve and looked down to see Tim shaking his head.

Great. On to plan B.

“Does anyone know where the bathroom is?”

They transformed in the bathroom and looked at each other nervously. They’d wanted plan A to work because it wouldn’t draw any attention to the security room…

Tim opened a portal inside and they stepped through. It was only two guys, and Adrien made quick work of them. He tied them up in some spare cables he found and pushed himself back to his feet.

Tim just waved him off and opened a portal for him.

He grinned as he dropped onto the floor of the main room. He looked around casually at the ten people that were still there. One of them was in just charge of guarding the prison, but the other nine were cops.

He tipped his head from side to side, weighing his chances as the cops began pulling out their guns.

Hm. This was much scarier when they could actually see him.

“Don’t move from that spot!”

Adrien raised his eyebrows, glancing at the officer who’d said it. Officer Ross. Of course.

He gave a tiny shrug. “If you say so.”

He extended his staff and smiled when it hit the cop nearest him in the face.

Then Adrien hooked it under a desk and tossed it at Ross.

Great. Now that he had spited that guy, he swung his weapon in a wide arc and took out the lights.

He smiled brightly at the now dark room and looked around as the cops scrambled. Some had already done this before and others had heard the story, but no one was looking for a repeat except for Adrien. He extended his staff to get to the ceiling and considered the people below...

A few of them shot blindly at where he had just been, which was a terrible idea but whatever.

He made his way through the room. He wasn’t killing anyone, though it was tempting after hearing some of Marinette’s stories, just opting to their weapons and moving onto the next person.

He also maybe broke some bones in the process. It happens.

A few minutes later he started making his way back to the security room and he grinned when he saw Tim coming out. He had his laptop under his arm. They’d succeeded.

Adrien took a quick look around and spotted a security camera. “Got it?”

“No, they deleted everything,” he lied.

He forced himself to frown (it was surprisingly hard to do after years of smiling for every camera he saw). “Dang. Guess we’ll need a new plan then. Let’s get home.”

Tim opened a portal back to the bathroom and they detransformed. They waited a few minutes before Adrien slowly peeked his head out the door. He held Tim behind him protectively as they walked through the precinct.

They got to the main room and found everyone groaning. A few of them had found flashlights or had turned on computers for lights.

“Is everyone okay? I heard gunshots!” Said Adrien, frowning.

Officer Ross, whose arm was bent at an odd angle, gave the kindest smile he could. “It’s fine, we just had a vigilante come by. It seems like everything is done, now, though.”

Adrien nodded a little bit.

“Good. Everything’s done.”

~

Marinette was one of ten people who didn’t get a jail sentence.

Now, she eyed the two-weeks notice on her desk. No one would be suspicious if she decided to leave. Fifty people had gone to jail, no one wants to stick around to see if they’re next.

Commissioner Gordon had resigned, too. Something about how he was disgusted about being so blind.

She bit her lip as she sat there at her desk, her computer on a How To video on quitting if you technically had no boss. Unfortunately, it seemed that she had phrased the question wrong because now it was telling her how to shut down a sole proprietorship.

“Agreste?”

She paused the video and looked up, her head tipping to the side as she took the man in. She knew that she knew him from somewhere, but her brain couldn’t seem to place a name to the face. “That’s me.”

“Could I speak to you alone for a minute?”

“Uh… sure. I’d love to.”

“I was thinking the roof? That’s a pretty private place, don’t you think?”

She pursed her lips tightly. She did not like where this was going in the slightest. “Well, sometimes people take their smoke break up there --.”

“Don’t worry, I know there’s no one up there.”

“Oh. Great.”

“Isn’t it?”

She nodded, letting him lead the way to the roof.

Her hand dipped into her back pocket and she cursed herself out mentally when she realized it was still on her desk. She wondered if she could get away with asking to go back for it. Somehow, she doubted it.

Marinette closed the door behind them.

She smiled at the man. “You wanted to talk?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Agreste.” He turned and flashed her a blinding smile. “Why don’t you guess what’s going on?”

“Well… I assume I’m in trouble,” she said carefully. Her eyes searched nearby rooftops and windows. “And that you have at least one person around that could kill me, probably a sniper since you chose a rooftop and not an alley.”

“Correct!” He said. He turned away from her and started pacing around. “What do you think you’re in trouble for?”

She hummed as if in thought. “You seem to be the one asking all the questions. Mind if I at least know who you are?”

“I asked you a question first.”

She forced a tiny laugh. “Sure, but no one likes admitting when they do things wrong. Besides, what if I fess up to the wrong thing? Then I have two reasons for you to want to kill me.”

“Just. Guess.”

Hm…

He couldn’t know about her being Ladybug, they’d done too much to make sure no one knew her identity. No one outside of Dick had ever done anything that could be traced back to them, and all that footage was gone from the internet forever.

Then what could he have found out about?

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

He scrutinized her face for a minute before frowning and shaking his head. “Agoura.”

“Huh?”

“My name. It’s Antony Agoura.”

Oh. Oh fuck.

Well, at least now she knew where she’d seen him before?

He folded his hands in front of him, smiling at her. “I see you know me.”

“Of course I do.”

He nodded. “Good. Now, I want to ask you a question.”

“Another one?” She said quietly.

“Mhmm. I’d like to know if you think I’m stupid.”

“Of course not.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “You know, the day that Chat Noir bust into the police station was odd.”

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there.”

“Yep! Odd, don’t you think? Someone who previously didn’t get along with her coworkers suddenly decides to take them all out for free drinks. That same night, her son takes the commissioner out to dinner. The precinct was almost completely empty thanks to your family.”

Great. That was why that was plan B. She was screwed.

She nodded slightly, her throat tightening. “You don’t say…”

“And, on top of that, the vigilantes were acting weird! I mean, they were all set on distracting people and keeping them as far away as possible!”

“That’s… odd.”

“Mhmm!” He smiled and rested a hand on her shoulder. “An interesting coincidence, don’t you think?”

She nodded again, fighting the urge to shrug him off. “Yeah.”

He steered her to the door. “I’d like to congratulate you on your promotion, by the way.”

“The…?”

“Being commissioner is such an honor!”

She scoffed. “You couldn’t get away with that. I’m the newest person here, it’s too suspicious.”

“You think?”

“Yeah --.”

He opened the door and she fought the urge to flinch at all the cameras suddenly flashing in her face.

“Congratulations!”

“How do you feel about being the first commissioner of asian descent?”

Her eyes widened. Oh. So, it turns out Agoura definitely could get away with that.

She glanced to the side to see the cops who had been there longer clapping with sarcastic smiles on their faces. “Congrats!” Said one in a tone that definitely said that she was dead.

The mob boss moved his grip to hug her to his side, smiling brightly and waving at the press.

“Smile for the cameras, Agreste.”


	5. Cassandra Cain

It turns out that people with access to military-grade equipment are not the type of people you want to dislike you.

Really, the only reason she was still alive was because being Ladybug made her marginally more lucky than the average person.

From people in holding randomly getting out from time to time and somehow managing to get their hands on a weapon, to getting shot by ‘malfunctioning’ firearms, to constant bomb threats, to the one time someone actually tried to drop an anvil on her head, things were just not looking good for Marinette.

And, it turns out, being a boss is just a hard thing in general. When they weren’t attempting to kill her, they were coming to her with questions. She spent most of her day in the office, scanning through manual after manual. She got basically zero breaks, because even when she had a sign on her door saying she was eating lunch they still came in to ask her things.

And then, at the end of the day, she’d get home… things weren’t great there, either.

Barbara had moved in after a year of dating Dick (Marinette had been stunned to learn that their relationship was actually real but that subject had quickly been dropped when she realized that Barbara was actually a responsible adult that could take care of herself). She had banned caffeine in the house when she’d seen Marinette and Tim’s coffee habits and, unfortunately, everyone else had been perfectly happy to enforce this for her.

This meant that she only had about four hours when she got home to patrol before her exhaustion caught up with her and she’d be forced to go home and collapse on the couch.

On top of that, tensions in the house were high. It turns out that one of the biggest problems with avoiding your problems for years is that emotions get pent up inside and it gets harder and harder to ignore. No one had completely snapped yet, but even the densest person in the world would have been able to recognize that it was coming.

It didn’t help that she no longer had time for baking, which was her normal way of relieving stress…

And let’s just say they were lucky none of them were going on patrols together, those kinds of high-stress situations do not help.

~

Adrien needed sleep.

He worked ten hours a day, which isn’t that much longer than average but was still emotionally taxing considering his job was teaching.

Then, he’d go on patrol for a few hours. He liked patrol, beating up random people is great for stress, but it was physically exhausting.

Then, he’d come home.

And he’d have two kids and an adult to keep alive.

(Barbara had the night shift, which meant that Adrien was alone for this. He swore it was on purpose.)

He’d go to his room and find Dick swinging around on the indoor gym they’d had installed (they were getting tired of him breaking light fixtures and had given in and put little hand and footholds on the ceiling for him to climb around on).

And then Dick would fall asleep, often hitting the floor with a thud, and Adrien would pick him up and take him to his room and tuck him in.

He’d rush back to his room, desperate to get there for just a second of sleep, only to find that, no matter how quick he was, Jason would already be on the bed. You would think that Adrien would be able to sleep. After all, Jason would be reading a book... that’s supposed to be a quiet thing…

Well, you see, the problem is that Jason reads books like people watch soap operas. He’d curse out characters and call them stupid, tell Adrien contextless jokes, and occasionally close his book to vent about what was going on.

And, eventually Jason would sleep. Adrien wouldn’t move him because a) it would wake him up and b) on the very small chance it didn’t wake him, Jason sometimes half-joked that when he woke up alone he feared that they’d left him behind…

So, yeah, Jason got to stay in the room.

Adrien would blink and then he’d find Tim in the door with his computer.

Tim, it seemed, would actually wait to see if Adrien was okay with it if he came in. He always stood in the door, hugging his laptop to his chest, and wouldn’t dare come inside until Adrien said he could.

Of course Adrien would sigh and nod his head yes, making a joke about how his kids were sleeping in shifts to annoy him, and move over on the bed a bit to let Tim on.

And then Tim would do homework or play games on his computer.

Adrien hated the sound of clicky keyboards. He’d had no clue he was alone in this until one day he complained about it and everyone in the room had stared at him like he was crazy.

But, yeah, the keyboard made him want to die. He just wanted to sleep...

And then Barbara would poke her head in after a long night to tell Adrien that it was time for him to get ready for work.

Sprinkle in one or two probably life-threatening accidents and you’d have a typical night for him.

Now, you might be thinking, why doesn’t he just fall asleep on the couch?

Beyond the fact that the kids would just… follow him there, Adrien was also a rich kid growing up. He couldn’t sleep on couches. They’re uncomfortable.

No, now his only saving grace was the fact that Barbara didn’t have a way to monitor the coffee machine at his work.

… Oh kwami, he had become what he’d hated.

~

She dropped onto the bed -- she’d had enough energy to make it all the way there for once -- and glared at the mostly empty bulletin board on Antony Agoura. The man was smart, unfortunately, opting to keep his identity a secret as much as possible. He used a fake name. He wore gloves no matter what. He used solely cash…

And it wasn’t like she was going to be able to lure him out again. That had been an intimidation tactic, a way of saying ‘leave it alone or you’ll see exactly what I can do’.

And, as much as she hated to admit it even to herself, she was a little bit scared of him. For the first time since Zucco, the person she was facing knew who she was as a civilian, and she hated that she’d lost that advantage. Even if her family was better trained in self-defense than most, they weren’t invulnerable and they couldn’t be careful every second of the day.

Part of her was tempted to pack up and go on the run like they had done with Zucco… but the situations were different. With Zucco they knew they would eventually be able to catch him but with Agoura...

She closed her eyes, unable to look at it any longer.

Fuck. She was really screwed this time, huh?

She felt someone sink into the bed next to her and reached out for them. She didn’t really care who it was as she buried her face in their shoulder.

Sleep…

Less than a minute later, her phone buzzed to tell her that it was time to start cooking everyone’s meals for the day and she mumbled a curse before peeling herself away from the person. She squinted a little bit in the dark to see who it was. Tim.

She yawned and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Want to cook with me?”

“I’d burn the house down.”

“Probably. Want to stand nearby and make sure I don’t fall asleep while cooking so nothing burns?”

He shrugged a little bit. “Don’t see why not.”

They both crawled out of bed and she used him for support as they made their way down to the kitchen.

~

Adrien had been on patrol when she’d appeared.

And ‘appeared’ was definitely the way to describe it. He’d been relaxing on a rooftop, giving himself a few second break to just breathe in silence for once… and then he’d felt a hand shaking his shoulder.

He fought the urge to jump or lash out, his head whipping around to look at the person who was shaking him.

It was… a girl?

Actually, she looked about Jason’s age, so maybe a woman?

It didn’t matter. She looked terrified. Her eyes were so wide it looked almost exaggerated, her lips drawn into a deep frown.

The more he took in about her appearance the more concerned he was. Her stance was wide, which likely meant she fought often. Her clothes were ratty and torn. The little parts of her skin that weren’t caked in dirt were split with cuts that were either infected or about to be infected.

He rested a hand over hers as gently as he could and looked at her. “How are you up here? Actually, that doesn’t matter. What’s wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Is your family hurt?”

She waved her free hand around frantically. Wordlessly.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Do you not speak English? Or are you mute? Deaf?”

He realized all these questions weren’t going to get answers and he sighed. Crap, what could he do?

He mulled it over for a second before snapping his fingers. He held up a finger for one minute, then held up his hands and made a tiny ‘stay’ motion with them just in case, and then ran to the nearest convenience store.

He didn’t care enough to detransform. It got him through the line quickly, at least.

He found a pen and a pad of paper and returned to the rooftop…

She wasn’t there anymore.

He sighed, a mix of frustration and concern coursing through him. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He should get back to patrol. Maybe he’d find her and/or whatever situation she was trying to get his attention for…

He opened his eyes and actually did jump this time. She was right in front of him. What? He hadn’t heard her…

He shook off his growing unease and handed her the notepad and pen.

She frowned, her face a little more than confused. Had she never seen a pen and paper before? Surely that couldn’t be right…

Still, he gently took the paper and pen back and wrote a tiny question mark.

He handed it over again and she looked at the mark like she’d never seen it before. Maybe her language didn’t have question marks…?

Then she started doodling.

Well, his plan had been for her to write whatever it was down and he would see if his phone would translate it, but he guessed this would work, too.

The first drawing explained some of the girl’s problems with communication. It was a little doodle where the mouth and ears had been X-ed out. She couldn’t speak or hear… or, at least, that’s what he’d figured.

He searched his memory for his old sign language lessons. Unfortunately, though, sign language is something that has to be practiced. All he could do is fingerspell “U O-K?”

She didn’t seem to understand.

Fair enough. He was pretty sure he was using LSF, anyways, and he didn’t exactly know for sure how close that was to ASL… or whatever other language she could have known. He couldn’t really tell much about where she was from, her skin was covered in dirt, okay?

She started doodling the rest of her life story and he nearly punched something. Probably would have if he hadn’t been scared he’d startle her or scare her off.

Whoever her dad was, he was committed to killing him if he wasn’t dead already.

He smiled at her and tried to think of a solution. He couldn’t take her to the police. Even with Marinette in charge, there was only so much she could do to keep the kid safe. An orphanage wouldn’t accept her because he doubted she was a legal US citizen.

He sighed. Marinette was going to kill him…

He reached out a hand to her to tell her to follow and blinked in surprise when she actually took it. Wow. She trusted him. Nice.

He tried not to feel proud as he led her home. He probably should have been scared that she was a spy or lying, but he found himself trusting her…

Weird, but he had bigger problems.

He detransformed a little bit outside the house and slowly walked to the door. He pushed it open and cringed when it creaked. Please don’t be home…

Marinette shifted under her blanket and opened an eye to look at him.

He quickly pushed the girl behind himself and smiled at his wife. “Wow, it’s you. You’re home. Wow.”

“Yeah, amazing, right?” She rubbed her eyes and gave him a tired smile. “How was patrols?”

“Great. Uneventful. Definitely good.”

Her smile dropped into a frown. “You’re acting weird.”

“What? Me? Acting weird?”

“Yeah… are you coming inside?”

“Uh… no. Actually, I think I’ll go back on patrols.”

She clicked her tongue. “You’re hiding something. I’m too tired for this, Adrien. Fess up.”

He cringed a little bit and slowly led the new adoptee inside.

The girl clutched Adrien’s shirt sleeve anxiously. He did not think this was a good thing.

Marinette stared at the girl in front of her for a while before a way too wide smile crossed her face. “Adrien…” She began slowly, before shaking her head. Her smile widened, somehow. She looked up, her voice sickly sweet: “Hey! Sweeties! Come down here.”

The reaction was instantaneous. There was a mad scrambling noise and they appeared in the doorway, expressions frazzled.

“Whatever happened, it was Dick!” Said Tim before anyone could speak.

Dick gasped. “No! It wasn’t!”

Marinette gave a pleasant laugh. “You’re not in trouble. Boys, could you help her get cleaned up for me, please?”

“Why is there another kid? Why does he have another one?” Said Jason incredulously.

When neither parent answered, they started ushering the girl away.

She grabbed Adrien’s arm when he tried to disappear through the door with them. “Not. You. Transform, we’re going out.”

He tried not to look too scared as they both transformed. She kept a way too tight grip on Adrien as they made their way through the town, as if she thought he was going to suddenly run away.

Fair enough. He was absolutely considering it.

But he didn’t. That would only make things worse.

They stopped at a relatively abandoned part of town and she turned to him, letting go to cross her arms over her chest.

“Explain.”

~

Did she feel bad for the kid that Adrien had adopted? Sure. No one deserves that kind of life…

But that didn’t calm her down in the slightest.

She was trying to relax herself. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she heard him out to keep herself from yelling or interrupting, her nails dug into the skin of her palms to keep her grounded…

Adrien finished with a sigh and a “I don’t regret it, she was in trouble and it’s our job to protect civilians.”

She didn’t know why those words made her anger worsen. There was some sense in them, and yet she had to strain to keep her voice level when she spoke: “Just once, could you actually just own up to a mistake you make?”

“I’ll own up to a mistake when I actually think it’s a mistake!”

“Whatever.” She thrummed her foot on the floor. “We can’t keep adopting random kids, Chat, there’s only so much we can do!”

“They need our help!”

“Bullshit! You need them more than they need you! Newsflash! Helping a bunch of kids isn’t going to make your own childhood any better!”

Adrien flinched and she felt a twinge of guilt finally poke through the anger, but before she could apologize he was jabbing his finger in her chest.

“At least my terrible coping mechanism helps people! You want to pull trauma into this? What about the fact that we still can’t say Lila’s name? What about the fact that you refuse to make friends with people our age because you fear them leaving you?”

She winced and her face reddened. “Okay, but does that inconvenience you? No! At least mine is only self-destructive! Yours is going to drag the entire family down with you! We’ve already fucked up these kids for sure, but you just keep making it worse and worse by spreading our limited time thinner!”

“Shut up! What do you know? You hardly ever talk to them anyways! You’re always at work or asleep!”

“Really? And whose fault is that? If you’d just stuck to the actual plan B instead of going out and attacking all the cops in the GCPD there wouldn’t have been as much attention on what had happened!”

He rolled his eyes. “I’VE ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT I HAD TO DO THAT! IT WAS TO KEEP EVERYONE AWAY FROM THE SECURITY ROOM TO KEEP PEGASUS SAFE!”

“PLEASE! NO ONE WAS GOING TOWARDS THE SECURITY ROOM! YOU’RE JUST AN IMPULSIVE DICK!”

“ARE YOU REALLY CALLING ME IMPULSIVE?!”

“YOU ADOPT KIDS LIKE THEY’RE POKEMON! OF COURSE I’M GOING TO CALL YOU IMPULSIVE!”

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO ALWAYS GETS IN RANDOM FIGHTS BECAUSE YOU’RE NEVER CAREFUL!”

She groaned and fought to make herself relax enough to speak without yelling. They were in a relatively abandoned part of Gotham but that didn’t mean that there was no one around. The last thing they needed on top of everything going on was to have their fight end up in the papers.

Adrien was clearly doing the same, because he was quiet for a long time before he spoke in little more than a whisper:

“Do you not want to be a part of the family anymore?”

She opened her mouth to say ‘of course I want to be a part of the family’, but no sound came out. She wasn’t sure why she was even hesitating. She cared about them, obviously. She wouldn’t be working so hard if she didn’t…

But it was definitely a lot.

She could only handle so much at once. Beyond the powers she was just a human, and supporting that many other people is hard. Especially considering she essentially had two jobs to keep up with, as well…

The longer she went without answering the more tears spilled over his mask. Still, he was waiting for her answer. He was waiting for some kind of verbal confirmation that she couldn’t do it anymore.

She reached up and gently cupped his cheeks, wiping his tears away with her thumb.

“Chat, I…” She swallowed thickly. “I don’t know how much more we can do.”

He hesitantly brought his hands up to rest over hers. “I know. I just… I can’t just leave them. They always look so sad.”

She’d fallen in love with Adrien for his kindness and now it was the thing that was threatening to tear their marriage apart.

But he’d fallen for her because of her problem solving skills. And she was determined to not let this be the one problem she failed to solve.

The problem wasn’t exactly that he was getting more kids. Marinette loved kids.

The problem was that they didn’t know if they could raise kids without messing them up too badly.

Part of it was that everyone in the family had had one or more big events that had traumatized them, and it looked like it was finally time that they started getting past it.

Could they even get past it at this point? It had been over two decades since Marinette and Adrien had originally gotten their traumas, what if it was too late? What would happen if they somehow did get over it? It had been a part of them for such a long time, what would they be without it?

And then there was the kids. Could they even get them to go?

It was worth a shot, at least...

And the other change they needed to make was to make more time for their kids.

Neither of them were going to give up their day jobs (Adrien wouldn’t and Marinette, unfortunately, couldn’t just yet). That meant that they either needed to get caffeine in the house or give up vigilantism…

Well, cross off the giving up vigilantism thing automatically. On top of just not being able to give up on the city they were in when there was still so much to fix, they knew it would only be temporary. They’d already tried to give up vigilantism. They simply couldn’t bring themselves to.

So that left trying to get caffeine past Barbara. The kids (outside of Tim) were very much against caffeine and they worked very hard to make sure neither Marinette or Tim ever managed to get their hands on it. From purposefully making sure Marinette and Tim couldn’t go anywhere without one of them to monitoring the break room camera at her work to make sure she didn’t drink any, the kids were determined to make sure Marinette couldn’t get her hands on anything.

But Adrien could. No one would suspect him.

She bit her lip. This wasn’t going to go over well. Getting Adrien to therapy AND make him get caffeine? Man, this was going to suck.

“Chaton… I might have an idea… but you’re going to have to hear me out…”

~

He and Marinette were arguing again, though this was far more light-hearted.

“We are not opening another portal. We’re already lucky enough that this dimension hasn’t collapsed on us, we aren’t testing it.”

He rolled his eyes and stopped scratching runes into the wall to glare at her. “Would you rather we let a girl-woman-female-you-know-what-I-mean room with a guy?”

“What about we give her Jason’s room and let Jason sleep with us? He comes into our room to sleep either way.”

“Jason still uses his room to store things.”

“This is a bad idea, Chaton…”

He grinned. “Mhmm.”

“This is what I meant when you said you’re stupidly impulsive.”

“Would you rather do it?”

“Sure.”

He rolled his eyes. “And that’s what I meant when I said you don’t care about your own health. It’ll be fine.”

She clicked her tongue and motioned for him to go on.

He finished scratching the last rune and sighed when he saw some weird tentacle monster slowly unfurling itself on the other side. He got to his feet quickly and raised his staff to fight it, only to cringe when he heard Dick and Jason scream downstairs.

“I’ll deal with that, do you have this taken care of?”

She winced. “Sure. Where exactly is the portal, to be sure?”

He pointed it out and then ran downstairs.

Jason was currently not having a good time, it seemed. The bottom half of his body had been swallowed by a hole in the floor and he was struggling to get a hold on the slick floors.

Dick was also there, screaming incoherently from one of the ceiling lights.

Adrien ran over and grabbed one of Jason’s arms and started slowly pulling him out of the portal. After a bit Dick snapped out of it and scrambled to help.

The three were panting by the time they managed to get him all the way out.

“What the heck what the heck what the heck what the heck --,” Dick mumbled, holding his heart.

Jason, though just as shaken, seemed to be getting over it quickly. “How do we fix that?”

“Don’t remember, ask your mom,” mumbled Adrien as he crawled over to the portal on the floor and peered down.

It was a tiny group of people crowded around a computer.

Wait, what the heck were they wearing? Were they cosplaying as vigilantes? They definitely had the tacky outfits down if they were but Adrien didn’t know who they could be. Well, it had been a long time since they’d visited the Justice League, maybe he just didn’t know them…

He cleared his throat awkwardly and flashed them a blinding smile.

“Um… sorry about this, we’ll fix it as quickly as possible.”

“Was that… was that Dick Grayson?” Said the tallest of them.

Was he dressed as a bat? Why was he dressed as a bat? Dressing up like animals wasn’t technically their thing but on the other hand it was absolutely their thing. Adrien was almost offended.

Wait, he’d said something. He tried not to go pale when his brain finally processed it. This wasn’t exactly how he’d wanted the world to find out their identities…

“What kind of name is Dick Grayson? Ha! Lame!”

Dick sent him an affronted look from where he was on the floor. Adrien gave him an apologetic smile and a shrug.

Jason came back down with a baking pan. “Mom said to drop something through, so…”

“What’s that?”

“Brownies.”

“You’re dropping our brownies down there? Are you trying to kill them?” Asked Dick.

Adrien blinked once then sighed. “It could have worked for once. Be nice.”

Jason scoffed. “It didn’t. She forgot sugar. That’s why we’ll give it to them.”

“Sorry about this!” Said Adrien as Jason dropped the pan through the portal.

As promised, it closed now that something had been sacrificed.

The three looked at each other for a few seconds before Dick looked away and said, “So… pretend this never happened?”

“Yep.”

~

She cursed as she fell back on the couch, never mind the fact that Adrien was already laying there. Her husband made a quiet ‘oof’ sound as she dropped on top of him. She was hopped up on caffeine and ready to bond with her kids but the problem was that the kids, in fact, had lives.

The little time that Marinette and Adrien didn’t have work was taken up by patrols, by Jason’s homework, by Tim’s extracurriculars, by Dick’s job...

“There’s still not enough time.”

“We might have to stop being vigilantes for a bit…” He said, though he sounded reluctant. “Or rotate off by day…”

She didn’t like the idea either, but it didn’t seem like they had much choice in this if they wanted to be better for their kids. They’d already had to cut back on vigilantism because of their jobs and need for sleep, could they really cut it out of their lives entirely? Just like that?

No, there had to be something they could do. The city was still the most crime ridden city in the world. They couldn’t give up on it.

But then what to do…?

She watched Tim stumble in with a dislocated shoulder and squeaked, pushing herself off of her husband and rushing over.

“Shit! What happened?”

“I… might have messed up a boomerang-horseshoe-thingy catch and it might have hit me in the shoulder.”

She clicked her tongue. “Right. I’m going to reset it on three. One, two --.”

Tim gave a grunt of pain as she pushed his shoulder back into place.

“You should have told someone, how long were you fighting with a dislocated shoulder?”

“A little while…”

She shook her head and glanced at Adrien to give him the ‘kids, right?’ look, only to find him lost in thought.

He snapped out of it and flashed her a grin.

“I think I have an idea. How do you feel about going back on patrols with partners?”

~

He stretched across his family’s lap as they waited.

Adrien, Marinette, Dick, Jason, and Tim all sat in a therapist’s office for family counseling. They would have invited Cass but the whole ‘not speaking’ thing made therapy difficult. They actually had invited Barbara, only to get shut down because apparently she didn’t want to ‘deal with all that mess’.

So, it was just them.

Well, I say ‘just’ like five people isn’t a lot of people to have in a single therapy session. The poor therapist looked like she was going to have a heart attack when she saw all of them waiting for her.

Good thing they'd chosen the shortest session...

“Um… Agreste?”

“Yep!” Said Dick, far too brightly for a therapy session but whatever.

“Cool… right this way!”

His family glanced at each other before shrugging and pushing Adrien off of their laps in unison. He pouted up at them from his new place on the floor, but no one seemed all that guilty about it.

Marinette did reach out and pull him to his feet by the back of his shirt, though, so there was at least that.

They filed into the therapist’s room and took a seat on yet another couch.

Dr. Quinzel smiled at all of them. “Okay, does anyone have anything they’d like to start us off with?”

The family eyed each other warily. They were here as civilians, so they had to make sure not to slip up and talk too in depth about most things…

“Jason keeps calling me ‘Replacement’!” Said Tim, finally.

Marinette and Adrien frowned at Jason, who was attempting to sink into his hoodie.

“Well, we definitely didn’t know about that…” said Marinette.

“Of course you didn’t!” Said Jason. “You’re hardly ever around!”

Tim sighed. “They’re just busy.”

Adrien flinched. That was way too close to the excuse he used to make for his own father for his liking. Were they really that bad? Sure, he and Marinette were definitely not around as much as they’d like to be, but they were making an effort… did that really matter, though?

“No, Jay is right. We’ll try and do more. We’ve talked about how we’re going to free up time for you guys recently, actually. We’re hoping to include you more in our...” He glanced at Dr. Quinzel. “... hobby. Do more things with you in general, really.”

Marinette nodded her agreement.

She glanced at the boy’s faces and then clicked her tongue. “Anyone have problems they want to share?”

“No, our family is perfect how it is!” Said Dick brightly, his gaze fixed on the window.

Adrien followed his gaze to make sure nothing bad was going down on the streets and then sighed. “Dick, there has to be something. You’ve been just as tense as the rest of us recently.”

“Nope! Everything’s great!”

Everyone else exchanged skeptical looks but they couldn’t really feel comfortable pushing --.

Dr. Quinzel frowned a little bit. “Okay. We’ll come back to you when everyone else has had their say, then. Hopefully you’ll be more comfortable then.”

Dick gave a charming smile. Dr. Quinzel didn’t seem all that perturbed as she turned to look at Marinette.

His wife pursed her lips tightly as everyone else’s eyes went to her and she smoothed out the front of her dress. “We’ve already talked about this one-on-one, but… I think Adrien could maybe think a bit more before doing things. Or, at least, he should tell me when he makes major decisions like adopting kids.”

Dick’s smile dropped instantly. “Are you really complaining about not being told things? You guys tell me nothing! I have to figure everything out myself!”

Everyone startled a little at the sudden change of heart and gave each other wary glances before finding their way back to Dick.

The man in question had pushed himself to his feet (Adrien whined a little bit about losing the person to lean against) and started pacing. “You even ask Barbara things before me! It’s like you think I’m stupid!”

“Sweetie --.”

“Dont!” Dick sighed and came to a stop. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s fine, it’s just… don’t you trust me?”

Marinette and Adrien looked at each other before nodding.

“Of course we do,” he said gently. “We’ll talk more about this at home, okay? When we’re not in the present company?” He looked at Tim and Jason, but he meant Dr. Quinzel. That was a hard subject to tiptoe around.

Dick took a seat on the armrest, likely so he could get up again without disturbing anyone.

Dr. Quinzel nodded. She looked at Adrien, and he fought the urge to try and hide behind Jason. She looked way too smart for his liking, it felt like she knew just by looking at him exactly what was wrong with him...

“I…” He struggled to find the words in French, let alone in English. “... think I try and get a lot of people in the house so I never have to be alone for long. I used to be alone all the time. I can’t do that again.”

Dr. Quinzel nodded thoughtfully. “It seems that all of you feel excluded or lonely in some way. Thankfully, that means all of you are the solution to each other’s problems. But, also, I suggest branching out some. Family is good, but so are friends. Everyone understand?”

They all gave each other wary looks, but they smiled all the same.

“Great, we can have a session again in a month or two to check your progress. That’ll be $7000 --.”

~

Marinette met her husband’s eyes and they exchanged nervous looks before walking into their room. As expected, Jason was already there. He was ready for bed, it seemed, with his pajamas on and his book out.

They took seats on either side of him and each took a hand.

“Jay…” Began Adrien. “We don’t love you any less because you’re not the newest kid anymore.”

“I know…”

Marinette bit her lip and pressed a tiny kiss to his forehead. “We’re not lying. And you don’t have to, either, just tell us why you think that.”

Jason looked at both of them warily before sinking into his shirt. It didn’t work as much as it did when he was wearing a hoodie or turtleneck, but it still worked surprisingly well.

She looked at Adrien nervously and he took the lead again:

“The reason we tend to focus on the newest the most is because they usually have the freshest problems. When we first got you we focused on you more than Dick because you were still struggling with old habits you picked up while homeless, and he was mostly over what had happened with his original parents.”

Marinette nodded. “And when Tim came in we focused on him because he was dealing with realizing his parents weren’t great and adjusting to a family who loved him. Now we have Cass, who… will definitely need some extra care…”

Jason sniffled a little and nodded his understanding. “I know you have to, I just… it feels like you don’t want me as much anymore...”

“No way!” Marinette said, squeezing his hand tighter. “We love you, sweetie, you’re just as much our kid as any of the others.”

Adrien smiled. “Exactly. You’re stuck with us, whether you want to be or not.”

Jason gave a wobbly laugh before slowly drawing them in for a hug.

“I love you, too, guys.”

They hugged him back.

“... and I’ll go easier on Tim.”

“Thank kwami, I didn’t want to ruin the moment by bringing it up, but… yeah, be nicer to Tim, please,” said Adrien half jokingly.

Marinette grinned. “Maybe give him a nicer nickname, at least?”

“How about Timbers?”

“Uh…”

“Timberly?”

She clicked her tongue. “How about just Timmy? Or Tim?”

“No, no, I think I’m on to something.”

~

Adrien stared in disbelief.

“You… you did what?”

Dick fiddled with a Rubix cube. Adrien wasn’t sure if that was just to help stay concentrated on the conversation or so he could more easily avoid eye contact.

“I joined the mob two years ago because I wanted to be more in the loop…”

Adrien and Marinette exchanged exhausted looks.

“Don’t be mad! I’ve been rising in the ranks for years now, eventually I’ll be close enough to Agoura to help you guys!”

Marinette sighed lightly and shook her head. “Sweetie, we aren’t mad.”

Adrien raised his eyebrows. “Yes we are.”

“You’re right. We’re mad. But we’re going to let this one slide.”

“No, we aren’t.”

“I can’t read minds!” She said, then she shook her head again. “Look, we just want you to be safe.”

Adrien nodded. “The reason we don’t tell you much isn’t because we don’t trust you, it’s because we don’t like involving you guys in dangerous things when we can avoid it.”

“But Barbara --!”

“We asked her about her opinion on one thing. She actually gave the same answer as you, and we turned her down, too. We’re sorry that you felt like we didn’t trust you, though, that wasn’t ever our intent.”

“And, besides,” added Marinette. “You have a tendency to snoop. We always figured you’d learn everything on your own.”

They took a seat on either side of Dick on the couch and wrapped him in a hug.

Dick beamed as he hugged back.

“... you’re still in trouble, though. That was stupid and dangerous and neither you nor your siblings can never do that again,” said Adrien.

Dick started whining.

~

Marinette bit her lip anxiously as she looked at her phone. All it would take was one click to call, but…

Adrien sighed beside her and reached over. He took the phone and pressed to call, then tossed it back at her.

She panicked, juggling the phone in her hands as it dialled. Nononononononono don’t pick up don’t pick up --

“Hello?” Said Nygma.

Fuck!

She looked at her husband anxiously.

“This or the Justice League,” mouthed Adrien.

She squeaked and brought the phone to her ear. “Nygma! Hi!”

“... Hello?”

“Hey! I’m a bit bored, so… I was just wondering if, um, you want to do something as…” she wheezed. “... as um… as…”

“I don’t really have anything prepared right now, I’m still waiting on that shipment of penguins...” The Riddler seemed confused, which was a first.

Was she a little concerned about whatever Riddler was doing with penguins? Sure. Then again, this is Riddler she was talking about. What was he going to do? Steal one of her ninja kids and then tell her exactly where they were? Whatever.

“No no! Like um…”

“Friends?”

“Yes! That!”

Adrien rested his head in his hands with a deep sigh. She flipped him off despite knowing he couldn't see it.

“I guess my schedule is free until the penguins come in... Sure! Want to go try an escape room?”

“No, I do an escape room every time I see you. I’m making you a new outfit.”

Adrien and Riddler both groaned.

She smiled.

~

He hesitated, messing with the strap of the bag over his shoulder.

“The city might need me --.”

“The city will be fine for a week,” said Marinette.

“The kids might need me --,” he tried, only to get silenced by a kiss.

She pulled back a little bit later. “It’s one week. Besides, we’re all doing what Dr. Quinzel said, and you’ve stalled long enough.”

He sighed. “For good reason! It’s a week alone! I’m going to go insane.”

“Chaton, we’re murderers. I think we crossed over that line a while ago.”

He cracked a grin, weak as it was, and pressed another kiss to her lips. “Are you sure --?”

“Yes! Oh my kwami! Now go!” She gave him a playful shove.

He raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest. “It almost feels like you’re trying to get rid of me.”

“And it almost feels like you’re stalling.”

She waved down a taxi for him and he couldn’t help but cringe as they took the bags from him. It made it feel much more real…

“I love you, Chaton, I’ll see you in a week.”

“I love you, too, M’lady.”

He waved at the kids long after they had disappeared over the horizon and he sighed as he sunk back in his seat. He knew it was for the best, he needed to learn how to function as a person on his own, but…

It was only a week. Only a week.

Besides…

He looked down at the coordinates of the last known location of David Cain (it was amazing what Tim, Barbrara, and Marinette could do when angry enough).

He wasn’t going to be bored, at least.

~

She turned away from the cake she’d been decorating and nearly screamed when her eyes landed on Cass. She hadn’t even noticed her walk in.

Marinette forced herself to relax.

She glanced over the tiny girl in front of her and bit her lip. She was wearing a mix of different shades of black which…

She suppressed a shudder. The outfit was okay, if she was being honest, but it definitely needed a splash of color.

“Right, that’s it, we’re finding you some new clothes.”

Cass looked at her blankly.

Right. She didn’t speak language. Marinette pursed her lips as she tried to think of some sort of movement that would convey what was going on, then settled for reaching out a hand for Cass.

She couldn’t help the smile that broke across her face when the girl took her hand. She trusted her! Score!

She hesitated for a minute before yelling: “SWEETIE! I mean… JASON! COME ON WE’RE GOING SHOPPING YOUR CLOTHES ARE GETTING SMALL FOR YOU!”

There was a few seconds’ pause before Jason poked his head in. He glanced at the two of them and frowned, sinking a little bit into his hoodie. “You noticed?”

“I… don’t even know how to respond to that. I’m a designer, of course I noticed. If you want to keep going for the grunge look that’s fine but you need to up your size.”

Jason nodded.

She rested her arm around his shoulders (something that was very hard for her to do now that he was both taller and wider than she was) and pulled the two kids out to the mall.

Jason was getting used to buying things for himself. He still resisted a little bit when people spent money on him or asked what he wanted, but he was making progress.

She pressed a kiss to his cheek and handed him a credit card. “Buy what you want. Remember the PIN?”

“Mhmm…” said Jason. He sent a wave over his shoulder as he made his way over to the men’s section.

She hummed lightly as she walked through the girl’s section to look for things for Cass. The girl was short and skinny for her age -- she was determined not to think about it for too long -- and she could easily fit in kid’s clothes…

But no kid of Marinette’s would have a shirt with the words ‘Girl Power!’ or ‘I love tacos!’ on it.

She helped pick out different shades of black shirts and jeans for the girl, mulling over the different colors she should give her. Yellow and red matched her skin tone but she doubted the kid wanted anything bright…

Marinette settled for giving Cass a blue scarf and some gold accessories.

She smiled and offered them to Cass, only to pale when the girl burst into tears. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck --

Cass hugged Marinette around the middle and buried her face in her chest and Marinette was just very confused.

Jason came back with two bags of new clothes and he blinked a few times as he took in the new situation.

“What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know!” She hissed back, waving her hands vaguely. “She’s crying and I can’t even ask what’s wrong!”

“We need to teach her a language,” mumbled Jason.

“No shit, Sherlock!”

“Fuck off, Watson!”

She was getting judgemental looks from fellow shoppers now. Great. Amazing, even. She rested an arm around Cass and then used the other hand to flip them off. How dare they judge how she parented her kid she just met.

She waited until Cass was done to pull away and lean down to check her face. Even if she couldn’t really speak, her expression should be a good gauge of what was wrong --.

Cass gently took the items from Marinette and flashed her a blinding smile.

Damn it. Now Marinette was going to cry. This kid was so cute.

She leaned over and gently pressed a kiss to Cass’s forehead.

HER kid was so cute, she reminded herself.

She helped her wrap the scarf around her neck. Was it kind of hot out? Yes. Was Cass super cute with her mouth hidden behind the fabric? Also yes.

She glanced at Jason, who was also smiling a little bit despite not having all the attention.

His smile dropped at her next words, though:

“I know you still have my card. Hand it over.”

“Fuck.”

~

It turns out ASL is hard.

It also turns out that teaching ASL, while you’re still learning it yourself, to a person who doesn’t even comprehend language is even harder.

Weird how that works out.

They started with simpler things. Everyday objects, basic emotions, the first letters of their names so she could say who she was talking about. It was a slow process, especially because they often would take two days per lesson because of everyone’s conflicting schedules.

But it was a process.

And he thought the family was doing pretty well, too. It probably helped that Cass was, at least so far, the nicest person in the house and none of them wanted her to be sad or lonely.

Look at that. They were working on making her not feel excluded. Progress! Dr. Quinzel would be proud.

~

Marinette paused her walk to the kitchen when she saw blonde hair. Adrien had blond hair, but he was still out on patrols with Dick so…

She turned and looked at the person on the couch with Tim. “Please, kwami, tell me he didn’t get another one when we just started making progress.”

Tim barely even looked up from his computer. “No, just my friend, Steph. She’s here because she thinks I’m sad my parents died.”

“Oh, oka --.” Marinette took a step back. “Hold up, what?”

“Yeah, they were killed by this guy in Haiti. I was sad about it for a while but then I was like ‘wait a minute! I can just kill him back!’ Anyways, it’s all good now.”

Steph didn’t seem all that perturbed about the murder thing, so she brushed past worrying about their identities or, y’know, her kid getting prosecuted...

Marinette pulled out her phone. “Yeah, Dr. Quinzel? I’m going to need to schedule another appointment…”

Tim frowned. “I’m fine, Mari.”

“Oh! Yeah! This isn’t for you… but, Steph, he doesn’t have anything going on Friday night, right?”

“I’ll make sure he’s free.”

She nodded. “Thanks, sweetie. Want anything to eat?”

“Guys! I’m fine! I got my revenge! I feel great!”

“Of course, you do, Timmy. And… waffles?”

She continued her walk to the kitchen to finish up scheduling and make Steph waffles.

~

Listen, at this point Cass having a miraculous was a given.

He might as well make sure it was a good one that would come in useful. And, it kind of matched her fighting style of predicting people’s moves to have one that allowed her to go five minutes into the past. She’d be even better at predicting people’s movements if she’d seen them before!

Besides, she liked the color blue. Perfect fit.

Marinette had agreed to train her, but Adrien was the one to take her out on patrols with him.

It was good to have people with different fight styles together, it made solving problems easier. Adrien paired with Dick and Cass, Marinette tended to pair with Jason, and Tim would tag in on either side since he had no real consistent fight style (he liked to change based on his opponent).

Besides, with group patrols they got to spend more time with their kids! They were nothing if not efficient people.

He and Cass sat on the rooftop across from the building Agoura had asked to meet Dick in. There was a low chance it was going to get violent, there should be no way that he’d know anything was off (Marinette and Dick had been publicly fighting for the past year to make it seem like they were on opposite sides), but it was better safe than sorry.

He watched Dick wave to Agoura and head off. Adrien and Cass watched carefully for any sign that they were suspicious, that they were going to do something underhanded, but Agoura just turned and started heading off into the night.

When his oldest son came up to sit with them, he had a thought. He glanced at Cass and made a swiping motion on his wrist.

She nodded her understanding.

They waited for Dick to transform before following Agoura and his goons. Five people were with him, but that wasn’t actually that bad by Agoura standards, so...

“Y’know, if he gets suspicious of me because of this, I’m never going to forgive you,” said Dick.

He shrugged absently, then broke into a wide grin when Agoura turned down an alley. “Living hotel to hotel wasn’t that bad back in the day.”

“Hm. I disagree, but…” The three of them exchanged grins as Cass activated her power. “Let’s do this.”

Dick brought his flute to his lips and played a high-pitched note that made Agoura and his goons stop in their tracks. Duplicates of each vigilante slowly spread out over the rooftops, as well as a replica of Dick.

The vigilantes and their fakes dropped down to surround the group and Cass suddenly reached out and jerked Adrien’s hand. He almost complained but then a bullet soared past where his head had just been and he went pale.

He squeezed her hand once as thanks and then pulled away so he could activate his Cataclysm.

Doubles went after the goons while Cass went to work disarming people. It was kind of creepy how she disappeared into the shadows without any help from Dick, but no one said anything because it was useful. She would pop out of shadows and break arms and legs to put goons out of commission.

Dick was giving himself an alibi. The fake lawyer ran into the action, only to get taken out by a fake Cass.

Agoura was making a run for it. Too bad, really, that he couldn’t exactly see anything that was going on. The world in front of Agoura was a mess of dumpsters and trash bags that he was struggling to run around. Adrien, who knew for a fact that everything was either fake or light enough to brush away with his staff, followed after him at a calm pace.

He grabbed Agoura by the back of his tailored suit and smiled at him.

“Agoura! Buddy! Where are you going? I just want to chat!”

“Nice one!” Yelled Dick from somewhere in the chaos.

“Thanks, Robin!”

He tipped his head to the side and regarded the man in his grip. It was clear he didn’t really know that much self-defense, but he must have some kind of weapon hidden on him…

Cass seemingly materialized out of the wall nearby and threw herself at Agoura, a blur of blue and black, and the man was nearly knocked out of Adrien’s grip by the force. Then she pulled away with a gun and a few knives.

Adrien raised his eyebrows a little bit before sending her a smile. Yeah. It was definitely a good thing that he’d given her that specific miraculous...

He turned his attention back on the mobster, who was beginning to look a little pale.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m not here to kill you. You deserve way worse,” he said brightly.

He pressed his hand to the man’s wrist. He closed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate on just dissolving the wrist. It was kind of hard to do with the mobster screaming his head off. Kwami, you’d think he’d be quiet so Adrien wouldn’t dissolve him into nothing but apparently not…

The hand popped off and he let go instantly. He looked down and winced at the black webbing its way under the glove.

He glanced at the mobster nearby, who was still screaming, and rolled his eyes. He punched him as hard as he could and smiled when he fell to the ground in a heap by the hand. Good, now that that was dealt with...

He scrunched up his nose a little bit as he slowly peeled the glove off of the hand and then his face split into a wide smile. Thank kwami, he hadn’t ruined the prints.

He turned to his kids and found them waiting for him amidst a pile of bodies. He didn’t know if the henchmen were alive or not, but when he saw the tiny scrape on Cass’s cheek he decided he didn’t care.

He waved the hand at them.

“We got him!”

~

Listen, Marinette had considered staying commissioner…

For approximately two seconds.

The vigilantes had made their point in getting Agoura arrested (they gave him about four days before he ‘mysteriously committed suicide’ in jail thanks to either underpaid henchmen or old victims). They were done. It had been way too hard to even think about doing it consistently. No, murder was definitely the way to go.

She glanced over at Nygma. “Thanks for helping me pack up.”

“Well, I figured it would be nice to visit again.”

She nodded slowly and looked around her old office. Tomorrow there would be someone else in that chair, someone likely far more corrupt…

“Got a knife on you?”

“Obviously, but why?”

She shrugged and took it from his outstretched hand. She knelt down by the chair and sawed on one of the legs until she had taken off a tiny piece of it. She pushed on the chair and giggled a little when it wobbled. Yes. Perfect. That would be so annoying.

She tossed the piece of chair leg in the air and then caught it, sending Nygma a wink. “The budget here is terrible, it’ll take at least a few months to get a new chair.”

Nygma rolled his eyes and took his knife back from her. “Hm. And they say I’m the evil one.”

They each grabbed a box. His was full of personal items, hers was full of files on every person currently in the GCPD and every mobster and goon she could think of the name of.

“You owe me one escape room.”

She groaned as they slipped out into the halls. “Why? Wasn’t it enough to spit on the floor?”

“Nope! Spitting on the floor was payment for me showing up, you’re making me do manual labor so I get one hour of escape rooms with you.”

“Don’t you know every solution already?”

“A new one opened up across town!”

She clicked her tongue irritably but shrugged. “Fine. But only because I owe you, not because we’re friends.”

He rolled his eyes and then looked down at the box he was carrying. “Wow, it sure would suck if all these pictures of your kids just… fell.”

Her eyes widened. “You ARE the evil one!”

He raised his eyebrows.

“And… you’re also my friend.” She made a retching noise. “Kwami, I’m going to die.”

“What?! No! Only one of my traps is allowed to kill you!”

“Too late! I’m dying. I’ll never recover…”

“Nooooo…!”

~

He raised an eyebrow at the girl on his couch. He was pretty sure she was Tim’s friend but… she was definitely around a lot…

Whatever, he might as well at this point.

“Hey, how many parents you got?”

Steph didn’t even glance up. “Zero, thanks to you.”

He went still. Wait, was she saying this in the ‘my parent(s) was evil and you killed them’ way or the ‘they were civilians and they got caught in the crossfire and I blame you’ way?

“Um… did you like them?”

“No, he was a dick.”

He allowed himself to breathe. Cool. Great. That would have made everything difficult…

“Want to be adopted?”

Steph laughed a little and shrugged. “Do I get to be a vigilante, too?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Then... yeah, whatever.”


	6. Damian Wayne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't know whether to call this chapter Duke Thomas or Damian Wayne. I've been naming chapters based on which addition to the family starts off the plot and technically it could be either. :(.

Adrien tensed when he walked into the living room and saw Cass struggling to wipe a red stain (fruit punch, maybe?) off the couch.

“Uh…?”

She looked up and her face paled a little bit. She did a quick sign for help, which was just the letter H in sign language for them, and he hesitated. He wanted to, he really did, but if Marinette caught him being an accomplice…

He turned on his heel and walked back the way he came.

Big mistake.

A few hours later, Marinette walked down and cursed.

“Sweeties! And Chaton!”

Everyone scrambled to the living room and found her standing by the couch, her arms crossed over her chest as she regarded each of them with a barely concealed glare.

“Whatever happened, it wasn’t me,” said Jason. Everyone nodded that they, too, were not at fault.

She clicked her tongue and uncrossed her arms to sign along with her words. “Well, it was one of you! So, if no one wants to fess up then everyone has to help clean.”

“What? That’s not fair!” Complained Dick. “If we didn’t do it then we shouldn’t have to help!”

“Then maybe the person should fess up. It’s not like I can just figure out who’s lyi -- wait, I absolutely can. Cass!”

Cass slowly shifted out of the group and then walked over to his wife. She fixed her gaze on each of the guys in turn and then signed the letter ‘A’.

Everyone looked at Adrien, who was rapidly paling. Ah. Not good.

“Wait wait wait! It wasn’t me! It was Cass, I saw her cleaning it up!”

Cass sniffled and started wiping her eyes.

Marinette clicked her tongue again. “Wow, Chaton, I can’t believe you’d not only lie about it but also pin it on Cass. I’m disappointed in you,” she said. She leaned down and picked up Cass like she weighed nothing and hugged her as she took her from the room.

Marinette didn’t see the nasty grin Cass sent him over her shoulder.

But Adrien and the boys did.

Tim waited until Marinette was out of the room to laugh, and Jason and Dick both joined him almost instantly.

“You know, I’d feel bad but you probably deserve it,” said Dick.

Adrien sighed and shook his head. “I don’t.”

“Please, Cass hardly ever does anything mean. You messed up,” said Jason through peals of laughter.

“Shut up,” said Adrien bitterly as he made his way to the closet for cleaning supplies.

~

Marinette grinned as she made her way along the power line as quickly as she could without making a misstep.

Jason was doing his hardest to get her to fall. Because he’s a good son like that.

“Mom! Look! A person’s getting robbed!”

She flipped him off without looking up and then came to a stop when her phone buzzed.

Weird. She hadn’t thought anyone else was out on patrols…

She pulled out her phone and saw Jason doing the same out of the corner of her eyes.

 _ChatoNoir_ : I’ve found another kid. Can we adopt him? He looks so sad...

“Fuck!” Said Jason.

Marinette snickered.

 _Buginette_ : ok

 _HelmetRights_ : Fuck, I’ve lost the only other person who was on my side

 _Oracle_ : Youre not mad?

 _Buginette_ : ive come to accept random adoptions as a part of life so its ok as long as he tells me before he does it

 _ChatoNoir_ : Yay!

 _ChatoNoir_ : Right, I’m opening up a room for him. Be on the lookout for hellportals or whatever. Get a buddy, everyone, in case it tries to take you this time.

She glanced at Jason and they both shrugged before jumping to the street and hooking their arms through each other’s.

 _HelmetRights_ : We’re good over here

 _ChatoNoir_ : And everyone’s good here. Right. I’ll do it now.

There was a beat where nothing happened…

And then a bright white light stretched beside them.

Marinette blinked. She shared a look with Jason. It hadn’t been trying to take one of them? That wasn’t normal --.

“ROBIN ON YOUR LEFT!” Yelled a deep voice from the other side, pulling both of their attentions back to the portal.

She squinted to see through the portal and a strangled yelp escaped her throat when a blur of yellow, green, and red flew towards them.

There was a flash of color and Marinette was bowled over.

She groaned and stumbled to catch her footing, pushing the weird item away from her, only for her hand to touch something that was definitely soft enough to be skin. She was so startled by this revelation that she actually fell.

Her head hit the pavement and she murmured a curse, only to curse louder when an elbow slammed into her stomach.

She felt the person roll off of her and blinked the lights from her eyes to look at them.

It was a child, she was pretty sure. After all, no one over the age of ten would willingly wear that combination of colors.

Holy shit, wait a minute, the child had a sword.

That got her moving, scrambling on the floor to get away from a very distressed kid with a fucking SWORD WHAT THE FUCK --.

“Holy shit holy shit holy shit --,” Jason practically chanted as he, too, apparently realized the very unfortunate fact that this kid had a weapon out and they definitely didn’t. There was a flash of light as he created a shield around himself and his mother.

Good timing, the kid had started to swing it in their direction. It collided with the forcefield and the kid was thrown back a few steps. This only seemed to anger him, though, because the kid started hacking at the forcefield.

Jason and Marinette exchanged confused looks for the second time that night, but came to the silent agreement that they could just wait until the kid tired out.

Marinette plopped down in the bubble and held out a hand. Jason whined a little but reached into one of the many hidden pockets of his outfit and pulled out a snack at random.

Then he sat down next to her with one of his own and they nibbled at their food as the kid attempted to slash at them.

But, eventually, the person came to the realization that this really wasn’t working at all and they dropped down to sit as well.

Marinette pulled her yoyo off of her belt and started toying with it idly. Jason cocked his gun.

They dropped the forcefield.

The kid eyed them warily and they shared the sentiment…

But Marinette ended up just yawning and asking “Who’re your parents?”

This made the kid frown. “You don’t know who I am?”

She glanced at Jason, who shrugged, and then looked back at the kid. “Are we supposed to?”

“… I’m Robin.”

Jason raised his eyebrows. “We heard. Nice name, by the way, were you named after the vigilante?”

“I bet he was. Kwami, he’s never going to let us live this down.”

“We don’t have to tell him,” said Jason.

“True --.”

The stranger clicked his tongue to pulled their attention back to him. “Wait, I’m the vigilante Robin. So you do know who I am, you’ve just… never seen me or the outfit?”

Marinette understood, now, she thought. “Oh. You’re from another dimension.”

Then her and Jason paled a little bit. Oh kwami. He was from another dimension. They’d thought the portals were just portals to different places like Tim’s, but this was a way bigger problem. They didn’t really have a reliable way to take this kid back home that they knew of, there was no proof that it opened up to the same reality every time.

“Find me Batman, then, or Nightwing. Nightwing is a constant in every reality I’ve heard of.”

Jason and Marinette exchanged confused looks.

“Batman? Is he one of ours? He’s got the lack of creativity that you and dad have,” said Jason.

Marinette shrugged. “Maybe he’s the kid Chaton just adopted?”

Alternate-Robin looked confused and angry. “No! Batman! And Nightwing!”

“Yeah, kid, we heard you,” said Jason with a strained smile. “We’re trying to figure out who that is. Do you want to call the Justice League and see if he’s a new member?”

Marinette swallowed back bile. “Do I want… no?”

“Mom --.”

“Fine, fine.” She pulled out her phone and, after a few quick calls, came to the conclusion that neither of them existed in this reality. “Sorry, sweetie, it looks like they aren’t people here. Do you have any normal people we can try and take you to?”

Alternate-Robin glared at them. “Why would I tell you something that would lead to you figuring out my identity?”

“Because we already have a Robin, which means you probably don’t even have an identity here…”

They thought about this for a minute before groaning. “Fine. Find me Bruce Wayne… please.”

Bruce Wayne? Where had she heard the name before --?

Jason gave a laugh. “Wayne? The dead kid?”

Marinette reached out and gave his arm a tiny smack, because wow look at that now the Alternate-Robin (who she really needed to learn a new name for because I’m tired of writing that) looked like he was going to cry.

“Bruce Wayne is dead?”

“Uh… yes, sweetie, he died a long time ago,” she said gently. “I’m sorry, is there anyone else we might be able to take you to?”

Alternate-Robin thought for a minute before clicking his tongue. “I guess you can take me to Dick Grayson.”

Marinette and Jason were not prepared. Jason had been eating Trail Mix so he would have an excuse not to talk and was now choking, Marinette felt like the air had been sapped from her lungs. She was now very quickly doing math to try and figure out exactly how old this kid would have to be for it to be okay that Dick had a kid because she was extremely concerned --.

“Is he dead here, too?” Asked Alternate-Robin, who was definitely on the verge of tears now fuck --.

“No, he’s alive,” said Jason, who had managed to dislodge the M&M in his throat enough to speak. “It’s just…”

He looked at Marinette to try and figure out what to do, and she bit her lip anxiously as she thought it through...

“Okay. We’ll take you to him.”

~

 _HelmetRights_ : Okay, so, good news and bad news

Adrien cringed. That wasn’t exactly what you want to hear when you possibly shatter a dimension while creating a room for your newest.

 _ChatoNoir_ : Good news first.

 _HelmetRights_ : Good news is mom and I are okay

He breathed a sigh of relief and fell back on the couch. Great. At least that was fine. He could deal with any other problem.

 _HelmetRights_ : Bad news is there’s a kid from another dimension here asking for Dick Grayson claiming that HE is the ‘Robin’ of the other dimension where Bruce Wayne is alive and apparently ‘Batman’ is a thing

… Except for that. What the heck?

 _Pegasus_ : That’s one heck of a run on sentence…

 _HelmetRights_ : I know where you live

 _Buginette_ : we might be adopting him to because i dont know if he even exists here or how were going to get him home

 _HelmetRights_ : *Too

 _Buginette_ : i will help you murder helmet if you want pegasus

 _Pegasus_ : Thanks…

 _HelmetRights_ : You guys are the worst

 _HelmetRights_ : Anyways, we’re bringing him to see Dick because he apparently knows/likes him so everyone be nice

The house went still as the message came in, and then there was a string of cursing from multiple people and kwamis.

Adrien grabbed Plagg and stuffed him in the pocket of his jeans and then started ushering kwamis into their owner’s rooms.

Dick ran to his room, likely to grab a set of fake teeth to hide how sharp his teeth had become since taking the fox miraculous.

Tim started stashing all of his tech under floorboards.

Cass quickly pulled on her gloves so she wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally poisoning him if her nails grazed him.

Steph and Barbara met eyes and then apparently decided they didn’t care enough to get up from their spot, instead just continuing to watch TV.

Duke, who was new and therefore had the least to hide, just started tidying.

Only a few minutes later, the doorbell rang. He smiled as he went to open it, hoping against hope that whoever this weird Other-Robin was they were stupid enough to not notice the fact that everyone was more than a little out of breath.

He opened the door and fought the urge to squeal. The kid was so TINY.

The kid looked up at him and for a moment he could see the way surprise made its way across their expression before he turned around to look at Marinette. “Wait, you’re the original Ladybug?”

Marinette blinked a few times and then laughed awkwardly. “Yeah…?”

“Because that’s the original Chat Noir,” said Other-Robin, jerking his head towards Adrien.

The entire house froze up, unsure how to process this. Were their identities all well-known in this other dimension?

“Wait, is Paris still around in this reality?”

Marinette and Adrien paled a little bit. It seemed like in whatever reality this kid was from they hadn’t made the wish. This was really not how they wanted the kids to find out about all of that. In fact, they were hoping that this never would have come up at all…

Adrien flashed his brightest smile. “Mhmm. Anyways, since the jig is up, I guess you two can detransform…”

Marinette and Jason glanced at each other and shrugged before detransforming.

The kid’s eyes widened. “Todd?!”

Jason frowned and sunk into his hoodie a little bit. “Agreste, now, actually…”

The kid was hardly listening as he pushed past Adrien to get into the house. He took one look at the people gathered there and then turned back to the people at the door with a confused look.

“Are you doing this on purpose?”

They all exchanged frowns.

“Doing what on purpose?” Said Adrien.

Other-Robin examined all of their faces for a few minutes before shaking his head. “Okay… so, in this dimension, Bruce Wayne is dead, but you’re somehow all together here, too… there’s still, at least, a Robin but no Batman… and, apparently, Chat Noir and Ladybug didn’t fail here...” He pressed his hands to his temples. “Give me a minute, please, I need to process…”

The house seemed at a loss for what to do about the kid, because Other-Robin seemed like he was going to cry. Eventually Dick, who was the only one of them they knew had a good relationship with him, got off the couch and walked over to him.

“Hey… it’s a lot, yeah. Do you want some cookies? Mari made them and I think they’re really good. C’mon…” He gently rested a hand on the kid’s shoulder and steered him to the kitchen.

Marinette and Adrien met eyes again before pulling out their phones frantically. This was beginning to sound suspiciously like this was their fault and they didn’t like it...

He saw the day of the headline declaring the Waynes dead and bile built in the back of his throat.

The same day Emilie had died.

Ah. So that’s what the wish did.

He felt Marinette’s hand lock around his wrist and squeeze. He nodded his understanding.

They needed to get this kid as far away from here as possible before someone figured out what had happened.

~

“Who wants to take a trip to Paris?”

Everyone looked up instantly, their eyes wide. Fair enough, Marinette had never even considered going back before. Sure, she loved the idea of Paris, loved the idea of seeing her parents and visiting the sights, loved the idea of going back to the place she and Adrien had met…

But idealism had never been her friend. She knew that she would be miserable if she was back.

After all, everything there was just a reminder of what she couldn’t save.

(More importantly, knowing her luck she could be there for one hour and she’d still find a way to run into Lila. She was not about to start punching civilians no matter how awful they were.)

But, really, they needed to find Bunnix.

There wasn’t anyone that they knew of that could open dimensions reliably.

Sure, both she and Adrien knew how to scratch some runes on the wall and open portals to pocket dimensions. However, opening a random pocket dimension is completely different from choosing a specific dimension out of the millions of different realities that existed.

And Bunnix had time powers so… maybe there was a chance?

Yes, it was a stretch, but they had to try it.

“Damian, you have to come, but everyone else…?” She said, pointing to the computer on her lap. “Make your decision within the next five minutes, please, I need to buy plane tickets.”

Dick smiled. “Can we see your parents?”

Jason nodded and pointed at him. “Good point, no reason to go if we don’t get grandma’s cookies.”

“... you do realize that my dad is the one that does most of the -- nevermind.” Marinette clicked her tongue. “Yes, we can visit my parents. Who’s coming?”

Everyone raised their hand.

And that’s how they ended up on her parent’s doorstep with apologetic smiles and eight kids.

“Maman! Pere! Coucou!” She said, with an awkward smile and jazz hands to match.

Sabine took the kids in for a long time before looking at Marinette and Adrien pointedly. “I thought you were kidding when you said you had this many. You have a problem.”

Adrien sighed and looked at the ground. “I know…”

She broke into a smile and stepped aside so they could all file in. “Good. Now, everyone inside. It’s cold out and I’m sure you all want something warm to eat.”

The kids’ eyes all lit up and they rushed to the display cases. Tom Dupain smiled at them all as he helped serve the kids.

Marinette felt like joining them, but then her mother’s hands grabbed both her and her husband’s wrists.

“I need to know all of their names. And why is the little one wearing that outfit?”

She cringed mentally. She’d hoped that her parents would get so disoriented by all the kids that they wouldn’t really notice Damian, but really she should have known that was too much to ask. The kid was wearing the world’s worst color combination and was easily the most angry looking of all of them. He stood out.

She glanced at Adrien, who quickly started pointing out kids.

Marientte was left to try to think of an excuse. Eventually, when Adrien had listed off the last name, she said “He wanted to be an original vigilante for Halloween and he hasn’t taken the costume off since.”

Her mom looked a little skeptical for a second, but they were quickly distracted:

“HEY CAN I SEE MOM’S CHILDHOOD BEDROOM?” Yelled Jason.

“NO!” Said Marinette.

Tom, however, gave the kids the directions and she was left to watch in horror as they all started rushing upstairs to go get joke material.

She pursed her lips tightly. “It’s just one night. Just one night. Just one night…”

She felt Adrien press a kiss to her temple and gave him a weak smile.

~

It felt weird travelling with a young child and not carrying them the entire way.

After all, it would definitely go much faster if Damian just allowed him to pick him up, but apparently he had experience running across rooftops.

Part of him was concerned by this, the other part of him thought that he wasn’t able to criticize much about this ‘Batman’ guy’s particular parenting style. It wasn’t like he or Marinette were particularly against allowing kids to be vigilantes anymore, and he assumed Batman was the same way.

Either way, now the entire family and Damian all made their way along rooftops.

He glanced to the side and saw Marinette smiling behind her mask. He felt the same, honestly, there was an odd sense of nostalgia to it. They hadn’t done this since they were teens…

Speaking of blasts from the past, though, they came to a stop just outside of Alix’s house. It was a cute one-room apartment, which isn’t all that impressive until you consider the fact that it was facing the Eiffel Tower.

“Wow, Alix must be doing well for herself,” said Adrien absently as they slowly lowered themselves down to her window.

Marinette hummed lightly and tipped her head as they considered the fact that there was no one home.

He frowned. They’d been expecting her to be home, that was kind of annoying. Well, now she’d just think they were very loud burglars.

Whatever.

He glanced at Tim. “Pegasus, can we have an in?”

Tim opened a portal for them and there was a series of dull thuds as they all hit the carpet in Alix’s room.

Duke turned on the light for them and they all blinked a bit to get used to the light now spread through the room thanks to a lantern fastened to the ceiling.

And then… they had to wait.

Marinette and Adrien spent most of the time waiting by keeping their kids out of Alix’s stuff. They didn’t really like or dislike the woman, they were pretty neutral about most of their old classmates at this point, but they figured it would be best if they didn’t start off what was (to Alix’s knowledge) their first/only meeting by seeming like snooping pricks.

Speaking of snooping pricks…

Adrien extended his baton and hit the Dick across the room that was minding his own business on his phone and sighed when he disappeared into a puff of smoke. Man, he hated when he was right.

“Everyone, arms out, we need to find Robin.”

There was a collective groan of annoyance as everyone began reaching around --.

And then there was a loud snapping sound and they were all thrown into darkness. This only lasted a few seconds before the darkness seemed to part and creep into the dark edges of the room.

It seemed that Dick had, in a desperate attempt to not get touched and have his position get revealed, jumped onto the lantern that had been previously used as light. The lantern, in turn, had snapped under his weight…

Alix was going to hate them. Great.

Marinette frowned. “Wait, who did that? There’s no miraculi that can shift light...”

Duke raised his hand. “I’m a meta, actually. I have a few light-based powers. Like photokinetic vision and umbrakinesis.”

“Oh… cool,” said Marinette, who definitely didn’t know what those words meant. She quickly brushed past this, though: “The people underneath us are going to hate her.”

She grabbed Dick by the back of his outfit and pulled him to his feet.

Damian clicked his tongue. “You’re all children.”

“You’re… ten, max,” said Jason.

“Thirteen!”

“Really? But you’re so tiny…” said Tim, reaching out a hand to touch the baby fat still present on Damian’s cheeks.

Damian scowled and batted his hand away. “Don’t touch me, Drake.”

“Agreste,” said Tim absently.

This made him pause momentarily. “You took the Agreste name?”

“... yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

Damian opened his mouth, and then slowly looked around. “Did everyone take the Agreste name here?”

Dick shrugged and shook his head. “Duke and I kept our names to honor our birth parents, but everyone else did.”

Whatever the kid was going to say next was cut off when Alix entered her apartment and screamed at the sight of all the vigilantes just casually walking around.

Adrien and Dick cringed and brought their hands up to cover their ears and only relaxed again when Alix finally stopped. Now Alix had just frozen up and Adrien almost felt bad about interrupting her internal freakout…

But they really needed to get a move on, so...

“Sal --!” Wait, no, Alix had never worked with them in this reality, that was too informal. “Je suis désolé. Bonjour, Madame!”

“What are you doing in my house?”

“Well…” Began Marinette. “We need some help from Bunnix.”

Alix hesitated momentarily and, before she could say something along the lines of ‘I don’t know how to help you’, Adrien cut in:

“Please, this will go so much faster if you don’t lie. We just need help and then we’ll be on our way.”

She frowned a little bit and then nodded, mumbling to transform.

In seconds a blue portal not unlike Tim’s stretched in the middle of the room and she waved for them to come inside.

There was a moment’s hesitation and then Adrien sighed. “Right, we’re going to do this as quickly as possible so… everyone except for Ladybug, Other-Robin, and me are going to stay here. Sound good?”

Everyone grumbled a little bit about being left out, especially Dick and Jason, but they all agreed with a nod.

The three stepped through after Alnix. Adrien rolled his eyes when he glanced back and saw all the kids crowded around the portal, faces pressed as close to it as they could without technically going through and breaking the rules.

“You know, your French is really good for Americans,” said Alix awkwardly.

Adrien tried not to sound too offended when he said, “You think we’re Americans?”

“... yeah. You patrol in America.”

Marinette also looked a little put out, but she gave Adrien a pointed look that he was pretty sure meant ‘Don’t tell her we’re French we have secret identities for a reason’. He pouted a little bit but let the subject drop.

They walked until they were in the center and Adrien fought the urge to vomit into a random time period. The place was… trippy. It was both spherical and endless, bright colors spiraled in every portal but all that he could see was white, a high-pitched whine filled his ears and yet he was sure he heard nothing.

He glanced down at Damian and saw the kid looking around wildly, his jaw open in a mix of shock and horror. He reached over and covered his mask gently.

“Okay, what’s the problem?” Said Alix.

Marinette and Adrien exchanged frowns.

“Right, so… this is Damian Wayne. He’s Bruce Wayne’s kid.”

“Bruce Wayne’s dead.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Exactly. He’s from another dimension, one where Bruce Wayne didn’t die.”

Alix frowned. “That’s not my thing, sorry.”

Adrien sighed. “Yeah, we thought so…” He discreetly slid a hand down to cover Damian’s mouth. “... but, say we brought back Bruce Wayne. Because I’m pretty sure that’s the only real difference, so… what would happen?”

“Probably something catastrophic,” said Alix. “Even if he was just some random guy there would be huge problems, but this is a billionaire. There’s no way that wouldn’t mess things up.”

Adrien opened his mouth, but she shook her head.

“We aren’t going to be doing that. If that’s all, I’d suggest you go,” she said coldly.

He glanced at his wife and frowned. It looked like she was going to argue, her face red, and then her skin suddenly drained of color. Adrien glanced at where she was looking and saw why: three portals were glitching. One alternated between a kid crying over two bodies in an alley and a scene of three dead socialites. The other two started with the same scene, of four people watching a fire, but then quickly flicked back to what they knew to be Adrien and Marinette in their rooms.

He quickly turned around. “Fine, we know when to give up. Let’s go,” he said.

The portal closed behind them and he fought the urge to wince. Hopefully Alix would never notice that was off…

He looked around and saw the kids standing there, arms crossed over their chests.

“It looks like we can’t fix it…” said Adrien awkwardly. “So, everyone, say hi to your new little brother, Damian.”

He had pulled his hands from Damian’s face now that they were out of The Burrow, but now he wanted to put them back on. He didn’t know what to do with them and had to settle for just putting them on his hips.

“You’re hiding something,” Dick said. “Spill.”

He met Marinette’s eyes and she bit her lip nervously.

He sighed. “Fine. Let’s head back to the hotel. We’ll tell you on the way.”

Tim opened a portal for them and they began running along the rooftops again.

“So, our story starts on September 19, 30 years ago… the day my mother died...”

~

Marinette bit her lip. The family hadn’t said anything since they had told them the story, and the longer they were silent the more her anxiety increased.

Now, they were standing in an alley, detransformed, a block away from their hotel. They could all move -- should, probably, it was kind of cold out and if they didn’t get inside soon Tim would definitely catch something -- but no one seemed particularly eager to.

She shrugged off one of her jackets and handed it to Tim. The movement seemed to startle everyone back into reality.

“So, what you’re saying is… the reason why my dad and I don’t exist here is because you two made a reckless, selfish wish?” Said Damian, his voice soft.

Marinette winced. Part of her was tempted to say that it wasn’t selfish, that a bunch of people were now alive, but she knew that wasn’t true. After all, she and Adrien had definitely been concerned that something would happen that would kill a bunch of people in the place of those they had resurrected.

“Yes, and I’m really sorry,” she said.

“And we’ve suspected that things were going a specific way because the timeline was trying to right itself for a while, we just…” Adrien sighed. “... we never thought that we would ever actually get confirmation on it.”

Another silence stretched through the alley, and then Jason turned to Damian.

“Am I dead in your reality?”

Damian blinked a few times and then nodded. “You died when you were fifteen and then were brought back thanks to the League of Assassins…”

“That explains the ‘legally dead’ thing. Always thought that was weird.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Damn, I can’t even drive because other-me’s dumbass died.”

Dick raised his hand like a kid in school. “I have a question: do they like my puns over there, at least?”

“No. Everyone hates them.”

He pouted. “Man…”

The family started clamoring for answers as to what their alternate versions were doing, and Marinette exchanged looks with her husband. This was… definitely not the response they'd been expecting.

Marinette frowned. “Um… shouldn’t you guys be more… concerned? Disgusted? We let a bunch of people die…”

She got a bunch of shrugs.

Tim grinned. “You brought them back, didn’t you? Besides, over there I don’t have powers. This is way better.”

“Bet our trust funds are bigger over there, though,” said Steph thoughtfully. Then she shrugged. “Eh, still okay here, I guess.”

Barbara shrugged. “And, really, I don’t like the idea of being paralyzed by a clown of all things. Though I wish he was still alive so I could --.”

“THERE IS A CHILD PRESENT,” interrupted Dick, reaching out to cover Damian’s ears.

(The kid nearly chopped off his hands for attempting to do so, but Dick didn’t seem all that concerned as he dodged and stuffed them in his pockets.)

“I like being alive,” Jason chimed in. “Way cooler this way.”

Duke shrugged. “And it seems like Gotham is a little bit safer with you guys in charge. Less outright evil people with stupid gimmicks.”

Cass beamed and waved for Damian’s attention so she could sign: “Speaking of, how is Uncle Nygma doing in the other world?”

Damian stared at her like she was insane. “You’ve… you made The Riddler your uncle?!”

They nodded.

“He’s like… the cool uncle that teaches you how to avoid your taxes!” Explained Jason.

Adrien and Marinette hoped that they were just talking about the vibe that their ‘uncle’ gave off and not something that Nygma had actually done. They didn’t need any government agencies on their asses.

Speaking of government agencies…

Marinette pulled Tim aside. “Hey, I need you to make some documentation for Damian. I think we can pass him off as a biological child, he looks close enough to a mix of us, but… yeah, we need him to ‘exist’.”

Tim nodded. “I’ll do it when I get to our hotel room.”

She smiled.

~

Adrien eventually managed to coax all the kids inside.

Marinette and Barbara had spent some time on the plane ride attempting to make a sleeping arrangement that took into account a bunch of factors including sleeping patterns and compatibility, but they hadn’t even made it inside their rooms before the kids decided that they would take it into their own hands.

It started with Dick and Jason grabbing Tim and Marinette before they could disappear into their room so they wouldn’t be able to stay up.

(“At least let me get my computer!” “NO!”)

And then Cass, Duke, and Adrien all decided that they were bored and made their way to the room.

And then Damian, who had been feeling left out, ended up coming by as well.

The only person left out was Barbara, who had decided that she actually wanted to sleep that night.

Let me tell you, beds are not made for ten people to sleep on them. By the time Cass had gotten on they had heard the bed creak a little too loudly and decided that, hey, the floor isn’t THAT uncomfortable.

So they’d pushed the bed to the side and grabbed all the blankets from every room they’d paid for for a slumber party.

Adrien and Marinette were currently being crushed underneath their kids, but otherwise it was going great.

Damian was sitting the furthest away, pouting. Marinette had finally convinced (forced) him to change out of the Other-Robin costume and now he was wearing some of Cass and Tim’s old clothes.

Now, listen, when Adrien sees kids in oversized clothes pouting in a corner away from everyone, his first instinct is to go help. However, his instincts were kind of overruled right now because he couldn’t get up if he tried. Jason was sitting on his legs and Steph was attempting to braid his hair.

He had to settle for a smile and a “Damian… want to join us?”

“No. You all are… grossly affectionate.”

Adrien laughed a little bit, then realized he was being serious. “We’re… cuddling. It’s a normal thing.”

“It’s gross.”

He frowned a little bit and scrutinized Damian’s face. Did he not do this with his family?

The kid cleared his throat and looked away. “My father will come for me eventually and it is best if I do not attach myself to any of you.”

“Aren’t you already attached to us, though?” Said Dick, who had trapped Tim in his sweater so he couldn’t get up for extra coffee.

“None of you are exactly the same as you are in my world.”

Jason shrugged and flipped the page in his book. “Obviously not, we were raised by different people. It’s simple behaviorism.”

“Nerd,” said Tim, who had the least ability to criticize out of all of them.

“Shut up, Timbo.”

Marinette muttered something that might have been “Kwami the nicknames are getting worse” from where she was currently being crushed by Cass and Duke, who were using her stomach as a flat surface for a card game.

(“Got any sevens?” “I thought we were playing speed…?”)

“Either way, we probably all have the same general traits,” said Dick, who was apparently deciding to ignore all his siblings. Smart.

Adrien shrugged as much as he could without disturbing his kids. “And we don’t know when your dad will get here, humans need socialization to survive. Right, Mr. Psych Major?”

Jason hesitated and then made a ‘sort of’ motion with his hand. “It’s more like you need socialization to remain physically and mentally healthy but for the most part you wouldn’t die you’d just wither away --.”

“NERD.”

Jason pushed himself to his feet and oh wow so that’s what breathing was like Adrien had almost forgotten but wait no fighting is bad.

Dick quickly realized the problem with holding onto Tim while Jason was mad at him and abandoned ship, releasing the kid from the confines of his sweater and rushing away to cling to Damian instead.

Then Tim and Jason relaxed.

“Thanks, Jay.”

“Hm. You owe me twenty.”

“Gotcha.” Tim glanced at Marinette. “Want some coffee while I’m up?”

Marinette wheezed. They just assumed she meant yes.

Dick gasped as he watched Tim hop through a portal provided by Kaalki to get coffee. “I’ve been tricked!”

“Yes, clearly, Grayson. Now get off of me!”

Dick pouted and continued to cling to the child. “No. Tim is rude. I need comfort.”

“Unhand me!”

“Aw, come on, you love the other me it’s only a matter of time until you eventually love me, too!”

“MARINETTE! TELL HIM TO STOP TOUCHING ME!”

“MARIIIIII ALL THE YOUNG ONES ARE BEING RUDE.”

The person in question just wheezed again.

Damian was forced to resign himself to his fate.

Adrien rolled his eyes and sunk back into Steph’s lap.

He had almost managed to get to sleep but then Jason sat himself down on his chest again and dang it he’d just gotten used to oxygen again this sucks…

But at least everyone was relaxing for once.

~

What was the most upsetting thing about learning about the other version of herself?

The other version got a hamster! SHE couldn’t get a hamster.

Well…

Actually, she’s a grown adult. She can do what she wants.

But she was going to ask Barbara first…

She poked her head into Dick and Barbara’s shared room and was surprised to see Damian was also there. Huh. Apparently attachments do transfer over, whether or not Damian wanted to admit it.

Whatever. She’d had a mission.

She looked at the woman currently typing away at her computer. “Hey, I’m getting a hamster at the store.”

“Cool.”

Marinette pumped her fist in the air in victory and then turned to leave, only to hear Damian’s voice:

“Can I visit the pet store, too?”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “Yeah, don’t see why not. You dressed?”

“I am.”

She grinned and pulled her keys from her pocket and twirled them around her finger. “Let’s go, then.”

Despite having thought this would be just a her thing, she was okay with bringing Damian along. After all, she’d only have him for a little while and…

Actually, maybe bonding with a kid who was going to be gone in an indeterminate amount of time was a bad thing…

Ah, crap. Too late.

She brushed this thought from her mind and started on her way downstairs, only to quickly find herself joined by multiple kids: Jason had decided she wasn’t allowed to bond with anyone if he wasn’t there, Duke had wanted to see the animals, Steph had just been bored…

She realized that maybe it was time to get a bigger car as they reached the max capacity. There was still six other kids...

Also her husband. Him too.

Whatever, at least they had enough seats for this specific trip.

The moment she got there, Damian was gone in a blur of red. She blinked a few times and then muttered a curse. Great. She lost a kid. Already.

Well, at least she had everyone else, still --.

Nope. Only Jason had remained with her.

Does getting leashes for children count as child abuse? She didn’t know.

Jason grinned. “I’m the best kid,” he said.

She clicked her tongue. “You’re the best behaved kid at this exact moment.”

“I’ll take it.”

She gave his shoulder a tiny shove. “Whatever. Help me find them.”

“Dad is gonna be pissed when we show up with a hamster, y’know,” he said.

“What’s he going to say? ‘It’s a lot of responsibility?’ ‘You should have talked to me first?’”

“Fair enough.”

She found Duke looking at the fish and grabbed him by the back of his jacket and started pulling him along. “Besides, if he let Alternate-Me have one then he probably won’t be that mad.”

“We don’t know how mad he was,” muttered Duke as he was dragged along the floors.

Jason picked up Steph as they walked past her in the dog section. “Not divorce mad, at least.”

Steph whined and kicked her legs against Jason’s chest. “I want a divorce from this family!”

“Not at all how that works,” said Jason.

“You need a job to be emancipated,” said Duke.

“I’m concerned that you know --,” Marinette cut herself off mid sentence and then made a quiet sound in the back of her throat that she was pretty sure was a squeal.

Damian was currently being swarmed by about twenty cats. He looked somewhat distressed, though only because he was having trouble petting them all with his two hands. His red hoodie was now covered in multicolored cat hair.

“Can we please get them?” Asked Damian when he had finally spotted them.

Hm…

“We can get one of them --.”

“Each,” said Steph, who had managed to squirm out of Jason’s grip and run to the cat pile.

Marinette hesitated. Man, she was weak. There was four kids all giving her the cutest pouts and she wasn’t able to say no to that.

She clicked her tongue and looked away. “Well, I guess Adrien still would be happier with a bunch of cats than a hamster…”

“NICE!”

“I still get to name one JJ, though, and teach it to run around in a hamster ball,” she muttered as she walked over and started sifting through the animals.

When she got home she was almost tempted to pull an Adrien and see how long she could hide all the cats for, but she was 99% sure he could talk to cats (Jason had once had an in-depth conversation with a turtle, she wasn’t eager to replicate the feat with a beetle). They’d probably snitch on her.

So she went and found him in their room, the four kids trailing behind them.

Then she glanced at Damian. “Hey, sweetie, you should go through first and just say that you weren’t allowed cats in the other dimension and you wanted to get them while you still could.”

Damian frowned. “But that’s lying.”

“Think of it as doing what you need to.”

His face hardened and then softened into the world’s cutest pout as he slowly opened the door and stepped inside, his cat (Pennyworth) held close to him.

“Uh…”

“We got cats!”

“Uh…”

“Please, can I keep them? My father wouldn’t let me have them and…”

Four hours later, she sat with her husband on the bed in one of the few moments of alone time they were ever allowed.

But, also, she had JJ with her and she wasn’t intending on letting him go anytime soon.

“I know you allowed them all to get cats without even trying to convince them otherwise. Pennyworth ratted you out.”

“Listen, you should have seen Damian. He was so cute, you wouldn’t have been able to resist, either.”

Adrien sighed and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. “I’m beginning to think we should have gone with that manor my dad offered to buy all those years ago.”

“Is it still open?”

“What’s the point? We’ll have to move in a few years anyways.”

She groaned. “Fuck, I forgot about that.”

He gave a tiny laugh and buried his face in her neck. “Yeah, I don’t know how much longer we can get away with ‘model skincare routines are just like that’.”

She clicked her tongue, letting her fingers glide through his hair.

“... what if Damian’s dad can’t get here in time?”

“Finders keepers?”

She couldn’t see it but she knew Adrien was rolling his eyes.

“He’ll just have to get here in time,” said Marinette. She bit her lip and added a: “I’m sure he will.”

~

Despite being sure that Batman had to be trying his hardest to get here, years passed.

After all, dimension hopping is hard even when you know exactly where you’re going. Adrien and Marinette hadn’t even thought it really possible. Sure, they knew there were other dimensions and that it was possible to go between them, but targeting specific dimensions to travel to…?

So they weren’t exactly surprised when no guy named Bruce Wayne or Batman showed up to claim the kid.

That was fine. They could take care of a kid. (They’d done it before and, even if this one had a lot of social problems, this was nothing compared to taking care of a young Dick Grayson. At least this one stayed on the floor.)

What wasn’t fine that the kid was definitely not handling the fact that his father hadn’t found him yet well.

When they saw how distressed Damian was, they tried to fix the problem themselves.

Adrien had opened a pocket dimension and when, predictably, a portal opened to swallow Tim up they’d asked the people on the other side if they were missing a Robin. The people on the other side had looked at him weird and then pointed at a kid in an equally ghastly outfit as the one Damian had shown up in. So that was out of the question, it was opening new realities every time.

Marinette had asked all the kwamis, but it seemed that even gods are limited to their own realities. Something about upsetting a balance or whatever.

They had even granted immunity to any criminal that could get them to another reality, but if there were any they weren’t eager to make themselves known.

… so, yeah, that hadn’t worked the way they’d wanted it to.

They were at a loss of what to do.

They had to move soon, the questions about their appearance were becoming more and more common. People were beginning to speculate on how Adrien and Marinette had some weird inability to age, and were beginning to note that all the other people in their family had also seemingly stopped aging at around twenty. Could any skincare routine really be that good?

(No. Adrien knew for a fact that the answer was no. Any model knew the answer was no.)

And it wasn’t like they could just leave this child alone in the city. Sure, the kid knew self-defense, but there was a high chance of them asking for a social security number if he applied for a job…

After an unfortunate loss in a game of rock-paper-scissors, it was made Adrien’s job to break the news.

Adrien sighed and gently knocked on the wall next to the portal to Damian’s room.

“You may come in.”

He poked his head around carefully and sent an awkward wave to the kid.

Damian had been working out, it seemed, punching a punching bag. Adrien didn’t think that boded well for him, if he was being honest. Maybe he should come back another time --.

“What do you need?”

He winced internally and slowly crossed the room to sit on the bed. He patted the space behind him.

Damian clicked his tongue but did end up sitting down beside him.

“We need to talk about your options.”

“What options?”

“Whether you want to continue waiting for your dad to come get you or if you want to be part of our family…”

Damian frowned. “Why aren’t you going to stay?”

Adrien cringed a little bit. He might as well be blunt about it to make sure he got the point across. “Alright. Look at me.”

Damian nodded and looked him in the eyes.

“I’m almost fifty.”

The kid was not prepared if the way he reeled back in surprise was any indication.

“But you -- you --!”

“I know, that’s the problem. We can’t stay much longer before our secret identities aren’t as much of a secret anymore. We’re still planning to help Gotham, obviously, Tim can open portals to get us here, but… we all need to essentially go off the grid until everyone forgets what we look like...”

He got a frown. “But…”

“We won’t stop you from staying here. You’d need a job so we can emancipate you. We’ll still send you money and stuff when we can, of course, but that’s your option for staying here. We didn’t give you a miraculous, you age normally. You can live a normal life here until your dad picks you up…”

Damian nodded slowly. “And what’s the other option?”

“You move away with us. You can have a miraculous, if you want, and if not then that’s also fine but we won’t let you join in vigilantism unless you have one. If you don’t want to be a vigilante then we’ll pay for everything you need and support you in whatever you choose to do.”

“But I’d have to give up hoping that Batman would find me.”

Adrien winced and nodded.

Damian closed his eyes and rested his head on Adrien’s shoulder. “Why hasn’t he come yet?” He whispered, so quiet that he’d almost thought he’d imagined it.

“I’m sure he’s trying, Dami, it’s just not an easy thing to do.”

“Do you think he’ll ever get here?”

He sighed and shook his head. “I think if he was going to then he would have done it already.”

He felt a face bury itself in his shoulder and frowned when his shirtsleeve wettened. He hesitated. Did Damian want him to acknowledge it? Would it be bad for a temporary father figure to hug a child over the likely loss of their original father? He didn’t know.

“I’m sorry, Dami,” he murmured. “Do you want me to call Dick in here?”

“No…”

“Want me to leave?”

“No…”

He nodded slightly and drew the kid into a hug, resting his chin on top of Damian’s head. “Okay.”

“What if he doesn’t want me?” Damian sniffled.

Adrien closed his eyes. “Then, frankly, he’s stupid.”

He heard the kid laugh a little bit. “Yeah, he is a bit stupid.”

He didn’t answer, just pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

~

Marinette clicked her tongue and pointed at the whiteboard labelled ‘what to do about the crime thing’.

“More murder?” Offered Steph.

She rolled her eyes but wrote it down.

“More inconsistent patrols,” offered Duke. “So they have a harder time telling when we’ll catch them.”

She nodded thoughtfully and wrote it down.

Dick raised his hand. “Fix the court system.”

“Too much work,” she said, not even bothering to write it. “Not enough time.”

Tim didn’t even look up from his computer. “Get the social security numbers of every crime lord in Gotham and release them to the public. See what happens.”

She mumbled a “Alright, someone is losing computer privileges for the week…” She wrote down a reminder to do that in the corner.

“What if we…” Jason shrugged. “... become the major crime lords, rule over everyone, and shoot everyone who doesn’t fall in line. We wouldn’t be able to stop crime entirely but at least we’d get to choose what they’re doing.”

“That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

“Then we split into factions publicly. Give west side to Dad and Dickwad, Cass and Duke get the south, you and I can take the area around crime alley, and so on…”

Everyone looked at each other and then shrugged. Yeah. They’d tried everything else, why not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they live happily ever after? I guess?


End file.
